


Group Therapy

by tptplayer5701



Series: "Mind Games"-verse [39]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Butterfly Miraculous, Female Friendship, Good Chloé Bourgeois, Miraculous Holder Sabrina Raincomprix, Past Rape/Non-con, Peacock Amélie Graham de Vanily, Peacock Emilie Agreste, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Recovery, Therapy, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29286825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptplayer5701/pseuds/tptplayer5701
Summary: A "Mind Games"-verse story:"My name is Emilie and I’m a member of the Asian Order of the Guardians. I’m not a professional counselor, though I have some training, but Sabrina and I are safe for you to talk to about things you wouldn’t be able to share with a civilian counselor. Our goal is to help you work through and process your respective traumas and bring healing. This isn’t a simple or an easy thing – don’t place too-high expectations on yourself that you will be back to ‘normal’ by the time we’re done. There is no going back, and pretending that the trauma didn’t happen isn’t healthy. But with help, I think we can all grow together and find understanding."After their (new) friends went through some extremely traumatic experiences, Emilie and Sabrina put together a group therapy "retreat" for five of the others. Because almost everyone in this universe probably needs some form of therapy!
Relationships: Amélie Graham de Vanily & Sabrina Raincomprix, Bridgette & Amélie Graham de Vanily, Bridgette & Félix Graham de Vanily, Chloé Bourgeois & Amélie Graham de Vanily, Chloé Bourgeois & Bridgette, Chloé Bourgeois & Emilie Agreste, Chloé Bourgeois & Sabrina Raincomprix, Duusu & Amélie Graham de Vanily, Emilie Agreste & Amélie Graham de Vanily, Emilie Agreste & Duusu, Emilie Agreste & Sabrina Raincomprix, Max Kanté/Sabrina Raincomprix, Nooroo & Sabrina Raincomprix
Series: "Mind Games"-verse [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666807
Comments: 55
Kudos: 20





	1. Group Opening

**Author's Note:**

> While I am not a professional counselor, I have experience both giving and receiving counseling, including in this kind of group retreat setting. So this is based in part on my experience; yours may differ.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting to know each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were scared away from “The Darkest Nights” or “Fear Itself” by the content/warnings, this chapter gives a brief summary of the major events of those stories.

Emilie took a deep breath, steeling herself against the swirl of disjointed emotions pouring off of the six younger women sitting in the circle of chairs set up in the Graham de Vanily Manor’s large back sitting room, taking comfort from Duusu’s presence in the corner of the room. Of all the emotions she felt, the simplest had to be coming from Sabrina, sitting on the opposite side of the circle from her with Nooroo on her shoulder: nervousness. Emilie could understand that: while she had encouraged Sabrina to take some Psychology and Counseling classes this year – both at lycée and through a friend she knew who worked at Université de Paris – all of that was academic learning; this was practical application. Emilie drew in a slow, measured breath and released it, pushing her own calm and confidence to the forefront of her emotions. Sabrina’s emotions shifted through embarrassment into relief. Emilie focused on her own happiness, which was mirrored by Sabrina.

Now if only the other five could be so simple…

“Thank you all for agreeing to come today,” Emilie began, looking around the circle with an encouraging smile as every eye turned to stare at her. “I know it isn’t easy to open up to people, and especially under these circumstances. I am glad none of you are truly alone here. However, not everyone knows each other, so I think we should begin by introducing ourselves and sharing why we are here. Would anyone like to go first?”

Silence; the anxiety level in the room rose measurably.

Emilie allowed her disappointment to dissipate and smiled wider. “I can go first: my name is Emilie and I’m a member of the Asian Order of the Guardians. My miraculous allows me to sense emotions, as does my assistant Sabrina’s – that is why we decided to put together this program for the next two weekends. I’m not a professional counselor, though I have some training, but Sabrina and I are safe for you to talk to about things you wouldn’t be able to share with a civilian counselor. Sabrina and I will meet with you individually and in smaller groups, and there will be a couple times that we will all come together as a whole group. Our goal is to help you work through and process your respective traumas and bring healing. This isn’t a simple or an easy thing – don’t place too-high expectations on yourself that you will be back to ‘normal’ by the time we’re done. There is no going back, and pretending that the trauma didn’t happen isn’t healthy. But with help, I think we can all grow together and find understanding. Did I miss anything?” she asked Sabrina.

Sabrina shook her head. “Just that you are completely safe to share whatever you want to here. Amelie won’t disturb us or ask for more than you’re willing to share, and the two of us only want what’s best for you. Nothing will leave this room.”

Emilie nodded gratefully. “Thank you ,” she responded, smiling. The anxiety level in the room wasn’t quite as high as it had been, though she could still feel a level of nervousness emanating from a few of the participants. Examining faces carefully, she quickly decided on her next course of action.

“Chloe!” she called, and the girl in question, sitting next to Sabrina, started. “Can you start us off by introducing yourself?”

Chloe scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Please: everyone knows who _I_ am!”

Emilie raised a single eyebrow at Chloe, whose emotions suddenly turned to shame.

Chloe looked away. “Oh, fine. I’m Chloe Bourgeois, of course,” she stated proudly. “I was Queen Bee; now I go by Sent-Bee.”

“Can you explain why you’re here, sweetheart?” asked Emilie patiently.

“ _Tante_ ,” Chloe complained, “do I have to?” She sighed heavily and turned sullen. “Because of the reason I’m not Queen Bee anymore,” she admitted, stifling a sniff. Sabrina put a hand on her arm. “Last spring I was abducted by the bad guys and they stole my miraculous. The bad guy was going to have me killed – and he threatened to let them rape me first.” She stopped and clenched her eyes shut, lines deepening around her mouth. “If it hadn’t been for my best friend, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

Sabrina patted Chloe’s back. Chloe’s depression – buried for so long though it had come out again while she had been talking – abated slightly. “And there is no way I would ever have let that happen, Chlo,” she assured her.

Emilie nodded and gave them a benign smile. “Thank you, Chloe, sweetheart. Who would like to go next?” She looked around the circle expectantly. Had hearing Chloe’s story emboldened any of the others?

The girl who had taken the seat next to Emilie let out a heavy sigh. “Bridgette – I go by ‘Bri’,” she began. “Or Iron Maiden. I’m a student in London. And I was attacked by the Stripper Ripper, end of last month: a London serial killer we were trying to stop.” She stopped and clenched her fists. “I didn’t have my suit, and he almost killed and raped me. I barely managed to fight him off, moments before my partner showed up. I found out afterward that the only reason he was even on the loose anymore was because my partner had let him escape months ago.”

“Serious?” The girl sitting next to Bri’s jaw dropped. “How thick _is_ he?” she wondered, shaking her head ruefully. “You never told me the Hound was such a right moran!”

Chloe scoffed and arched an eyebrow. “ _I_ could’ve told you that…”

Bri shook her head, a surge of guilt and frustration boiling up. “I was all set never to talk to him again, but then…” She looked up at Emilie and frowned. “I blamed him at first – I was _so_ mad at him – but I was just kidding myself. _I_ was the one who decided to walk home on my own. Because I thought it couldn’t possibly happen to me. It was his fault the Ripper was loose, but it was _my_ fault the Ripper could hurt me. But I _still_ can’t let it go… I’ve spent the last week trying to design tools to keep what happened to me from ever happening to another woman again.”

Emilie nodded. “From what Amelie has told me, you are the perfect person to tackle a project like that!” She smiled. “I hope that this project will help you understand what happened.” She felt doubt and guilt from Bri. “Everything you are feeling now is understandable,” she assured her. Bri’s guilt abated slightly. “Recovery is a process, and it will take time. For now, perhaps we should move on to our next introduction.” She turned to look at Bri’s friend.

“My name is Anne,” the girl announced promptly. Emilie felt a level of guardedness and false bravado from her. “And I’m just here for moral support.”

Bri raised an eyebrow at her dubiously.

Anne groaned. “… and I’m here because the same monster who attacked Bri also abducted me, held me as his prisoner for a day under the campus library, and tried to sacrifice me to Danu.”

Emilie’s own surprise almost prevented her from sensing the disbelief and confusion from Chloe and Sabrina.

Chloe blinked, jaw nearly on the floor. “You’re–you’re being serious.”

Anne snorted in amusement. “As a heart attack.”

Chloe turned to Sabrina and rubbed her forehead. “This is our life now, isn’t it?” she asked rhetorically.

Sabrina smiled. “Didn’t you meet some unusual people in Somalia?”

Emilie felt a jolt of shock and anxiety from the last two in the room. “Girls,” she interrupted them sharply. More calmly she went on, “Allow her to finish.”

Anne shrugged. “Not much more to tell,” she said. “Bri and her fella showed up before he could light the fire. _Something_ happened… and now I can talk to and control plants.”

“At this point nothing surprises me,” Chloe muttered, shaking her head.

“If you’re looking for a ‘hero name’, call me ‘Bandruí’: ‘Druidess’.”

“‘Bandruí’?” Sabrina repeated.

Anne shook her head. “No, flip the ‘r’.”

“So ‘Bandruí’?” Chloe asked.

“The emphasis is on the first syllable,” Anne corrected her.

“She’s a stickler for pronunciations,” Bri observed, stifling a smile.

“Considering that the Ripper’s _bad_ pronunciations probably had something to do with how his rite went wrong…”

Emilie blinked a couple times. She had met Jalil Kubdel, the Heroes of Paris’ resident “mage,” as well as a couple of the Australian sorcerers when she had visited their Temple-Island, but she still wasn’t used to the idea. “Okay… thank you… Anne.” She looked to her other side at the last two participants. “Aisha, are you ready to share?”

The youngest girl present shook her head nervously. “I… I’m not sure if I really belong here,” she finally admitted. “I mean, I don’t have any superpowers. I’m not a hero. I’m just… me.”

“Of course you belong here!” Sabrina assured her, smiling reassuringly. “We didn’t invite all of you here because you’re superheroes; we invited you because you have shared experiences that you can’t really talk about otherwise, and we think you can help each other to recover.”

“Okay…” Aisha nodded, trembling. Emilie could feel the pent up anxiety and guilt and shame bubbling up within her. The girl’s mouth set in a hard line. “I’m Aisha. My family was murdered, my village slaughtered, by a warlord who called himself ‘Popo’. Turns out it was short for ‘Popobawa’. The monster claimed me as his… ‘wife’.” She froze, trembling, swallowed, whispered, “He did…” she burst into tears and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Sabrina knelt in front of Aisha and wrapped her arms around her. Aisha grabbed onto her like a lifeline. Emilie placed her hand on Aisha’s shoulder, squeezing gently and closing her eyes. Opposite Emilie, their last participant also put a hand on Aisha’s shoulder.

Emilie took in a breath as she gauged the emotions coming from Aisha, almost crippling in their intensity. “You’re among friends, now, sweetheart,” she assured her, keeping her voice low and soothing.

Aisha sniffed. “My brother, Abdi – Cadaabta Ey – served Popo for months just to keep me alive, before he had the chance to turn on Popo and rescue us – me and Hoda. That’s why Abdi and I live at the temple in Somalia now. We don’t have anywhere else.”

“You aren’t going to be homeless or alone ever again. You will always be welcome with us,” Emilie promised her, rubbing her shoulder gently. “Thank you for sharing that story. I know how difficult it was to tell.” She looked over Aisha’s head at the last person in the circle. “And I suppose that brings us to you.”

The Shunjar’s lips turned down. “Do I _have_ to talk about it?”

“The best way for you to move forward after all of this is to allow yourself to talk about and process everything that happened to you.”

She groaned. Emilie schooled her features to avoid betraying the tangled mix of largely indecipherable emotions she sensed from the alien. “You may as well call me ‘Hoda’,” she finally told them. “My actual name just sounds weird whenever you simians try to pronounce it. My father and I crash-landed in Africa a couple years ago after our vessel ran into trouble while in orbit around your planet. We were found by the same creature who hurt Aisha, and he kept me like a pet, beating me as a way to keep my father passive and compliant. And he even forced Aisha’s brother to do it.” Hoda stopped, and Aisha leaned over and wrapped her arms tight around the Shunjar’s chest. Slowly Hoda swallowed and continued. “Now my father and I live in New Atlantis, and he works at the spaceport there.”

Bri furrowed her brows. “‘ _New_ Atlantis’?”

“‘Spaceport’?” Anne added, also confused.

Chloe smirked. “Have we got a surprise for you…”

Emilie smiled and looked around the circle at the five participants as well as Sabrina. “Thank you all for sharing,” she told them. “Over our next few sessions, we will continue meeting to talk together. Sabrina and I will also visit with you individually and in smaller breakout groups over the rest of this weekend and next weekend. I think all of you have something of value to share with the others as we work through your trauma. All of you have shown yourselves to be stronger than what happened to you. And Sabrina and I want to help you become stronger still.”


	2. Bri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Individual counseling with Bri and Sabrina

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was writing this I realized that with 2 counselors and 5 participants, I could make this thing go on forever with all the possible character combinations… which promptly got overwhelming. So the scope is somewhat more limited than that.

The door opened and Sabrina glanced up from her book to find Bri standing in the doorway with an uncomfortable look in her eyes. Sabrina placed her book on the end table next to Nooroo, who looked up from his grapes to give Sabrina an encouraging smile. Sabrina slowly inhaled and exhaled a couple times before turning a bright smile on Bri, who frowned suspiciously. Focusing on her emotions, Sabrina detected an overpowering level of anxiety to go along with the same guilt and embarrassment that she had felt when they all met for the first time earlier that day.

Time to set the counselee at ease.

Sabrina stood up and held out a hand to her. “After everything I’ve heard about you from Max, I’m so glad to finally meet you this weekend!” she began, putting as much warmth into her voice as she could.

Bri cocked her head in confusion but took the offered hand. “‘Max’?”

“Well, Pegasus,” Sabrina clarified with a giggle. She indicated the seat across from her, and Bri dropped into it. “The one Hero of Paris you’ve met before now – other than Chloe, I guess. And he’s my boyfriend. After the first time you came to Headquarters and showed him your jetpack schematic, he was almost on cloud nine since he and a couple of the others had been trying to design one of those for months! Then with the Beam of Life project…” She sighed affectionately. “He sometimes feels overwhelmed by the pressure of designing and building _everything_ that the Heroes of Paris need. And while the other miraculous groups have their own tech people – Mohamed who developed the new jetpack fuel, Paola, a few others – he was thrilled to find another in Europe who could match or exceed him with the engineering and tech!”

Bri flushed, and Sabrina sensed her anxiety level dropping, replaced by some pride. “Is it okay for you to give me his real name like that?” she asked, a hint of worry slipping into her emotions.

Sabrina nodded. “We’ve talked about it before,” she explained. “He is fine with more people knowing his identity, at least within the Heroes. And after you shared your jetpack with him, he trusts you.” She stopped and frowned. “I hope you don’t think I’m going to tell Max anything you tell me. Emilie and I may not be professionals, but we take confidentiality very seriously. Everything you say will stay in this room. In fact, even though he knows I’m here with Emilie and Chloe for the weekend, and that we’ll be coming back a couple times this week and next weekend, he doesn’t know anyone else who’s here. We haven’t told anyone else who is actually in this group. And we’re not going to share your identity with anyone – our policy is that it’s your secret to share.”

Bri let out a relieved breath. “I was a little worried,” she admitted. “I don’t think I really want anyone knowing I need anything like this. I don’t want them thinking I’m… broken.”

“That isn’t an uncommon attitude,” Sabrina told her. “This is nothing to be ashamed of, but at the same time it isn’t easy to admit that you have a problem and need help.”

Bri’s emotions turned sad. “Somehow I don’t think that’s something my father would be willing to accept…”

Sabrina gave her a sympathetic smile. “Fathers don’t always understand, even if they do love us. If my father hadn’t discovered I was a hero, I don’t think he would ever have accepted me not following in his footsteps by going to the police academy next year.”

“Your father knows?” Bri asked in surprise.

“Not by design,” Sabrina explained, grimacing. “Over the summer I had to save him from Lynchpin’s people, and he recognized my voice. He’s in charge of the police prefecture that handles super crime; he also pulled the strings to get you access to the London Police. So him knowing has had its advantages. But all the same… he tries not to interfere, but I can tell he thinks about it.”

“It must be nice, having a father who’s so supportive.” Bri frowned, her mood souring.

“Yours isn’t?”

“He is and he isn’t,” she admitted. Sabrina felt a mix of shame and anger from her. “I learned so much from him, and he’s the one who made me want to be an engineer, to build things. But I _can’t_ tell him about all of this.”

“Because you don’t think he would understand, which makes you angry?”

Bri’s mouth set in a hard line, her anger spiked.

Sabrina quickly held her hand up. “That’s okay. We don’t have to talk about your father if you don’t want to. We can talk about what happened a couple weeks ago instead.”

Bri scoffed humorlessly. “I don’t exactly want to talk about _that_ , either,” she commented wryly. She sighed in resignation. “But that’s what we’re here for, right?”

“It is and it isn’t. We’re here for _you_ ,” Sabrina corrected her calmly. “This might be the immediate trauma we’re talking about, but it’s just a hurdle; we’re here so _you_ can heal. Whatever form that takes.”

Bri nodded slowly. “So where should we start?”

“Where do you _want_ to start?” asked Sabrina. “You mentioned you were working on something to help other people in the same situation. Do you want to start there?”

“Sure.” Bri shrugged noncommittally and held up one of her wrists to demonstrate the sleek grey metallic band that covered almost 15 centimeters of her forearm. “I started designing these bracelets a couple years ago, but it wasn’t until… Max… gave me one of the Shunjar energy packs that I could figure out a way to power everything I wanted it to do. It started pretty simple, but then I added an energy pistol.” She pressed a button on the bracelet’s control, and a pistol barrel rose out of the top.

“That’s what you based the Beam of Life on, right?” Sabrina asked, leaning forward for a better look.

Bri retracted the barrel and nodded. “After… the other weekend I also added a taser function to my grappling hook – that’s what made the Ripper leave: a wire shorted and I zapped him. And after Anne, there’s a small canister of fire suppressant now, too. I still can’t believe I didn’t think of that sooner,” she muttered to herself, annoyed.

“So you’re designing something like your bracelet for other people to use?”

“That’s the idea – not with as many features, though. Maybe if enough women have something like this, the next–yeah.” She coughed awkwardly. “The next rapist will think twice about trying to do… what he did.”

Sabrina nodded contemplatively. “That is a brilliant idea!” she observed, smiling. “Once it’s ready I’m sure we can help you with selling them.”

Bri shrugged. “I mean, if any of the women the Ripper attacked had had something like this – or if my bracelet had been designed a little better…”

Sabrina frowned sympathetically. “It’s difficult to avoid those ‘what-ifs’ isn’t it?”

Bri’s shoulders slumped and she nodded, her emotions turning gloomy. “If I had just not walked home on my own late at night…” She hesitated; Sabrina waited. “… maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Or if your new bracelet device works, maybe you can wrest some meaning out of this ordeal?” Sabrina suggested.

“I haven’t exactly been able to find any _other_ good to come out of this…” Bri grumbled. She looked up, frowning. “And the worst part is: it’s my fault that it happened.”

“You mentioned that before,” Sabrina acknowledged. “Do you think you deserved to be attacked because you put yourself in a vulnerable situation?”

“I mean… yeah. Don’t you think so?” Bri sighed. “I thought he couldn’t touch me because I was a superhero, that if he attacked me, I could fight him off. Turned out I was wrong.”

“The fact that you’re sitting across from me and able to talk about the experience would provide a strong counterargument to that,” Sabrina pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “Even though he was able to hurt you, you still fought him off and survived.”

“So why should it have been me and not any of his other victims?” Bri asked. “What made me special? Others fought him, but they failed. I’m glad I’m still alive, but when it happened I was begging to die!”

“You gave up, and now you feel guilty.”

Bri nodded, her eyes turned down to the floor. “I gave up, but I survived. So what about his other victims who weren’t so lucky?”

Sabrina hummed. “Survivor’s guilt is nothing to be ashamed of,” she told her. “You underwent a _horrifying_ ordeal, and you barely survived! But you _did_ survive. That doesn’t take away from his other victims.”

“But I _deserved_ to die.”

“Why? Because you’re a hero?”

“Because I should have realized the danger I was putting myself in.” Her guilt intensified.

“What makes you think that?”

“I knew the Ripper was out, but I was out walking around late at night,” Bri explained. “I lived through Hawk Moth; I should have known better. I made myself an easy target. And I almost paid for it.”

“Did you _want_ him to do what he did?”

“No!”

“Did you plan for it to happen?”

“Of course not!”

“Did you invite him to do it?”

“Didn’t I? By being out alone at night?”

Sabrina shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. You by your very existence don’t cause _his_ actions.”

“I made myself an easy target,” Bri pointed out sullenly.

“You didn’t _deserve_ any of this,” Sabrina reminded her. “ _You_ may have placed yourself in a dangerous position, but _he_ did this all by himself. Don’t take on yourself _his_ actions. _You_ aren’t responsible for what _he_ did.”

“It kind of feels like it.”

Sabrina nodded slowly. “Is that why you started working on your new device? Because you don’t want to feel this guilt? Because you think helping others can somehow mitigate what happened to you?”

“I mean, maybe? I don’t know.”

“Is there anything that can change what happened?”

“No,” Bri replied bitterly.

“Can your new device undo the past?”

“No.” Bri paused, narrowed her eyes. She felt a surge of anger. “So then what are you saying? Should I just not bother with this?”

“Of course not,” Sabrina assured her quickly. “I think this is an amazing thing for you to do, and a good way for you to turn one of the worst moments in your life into a positive for others. But if you are doing it because you think it will take away your guilt or because you think it will magically let you forget it ever happened, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.”

Bri scoffed. “It’s not like I _can_ forget what happened; I have more than enough scars to remember it. She unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse and pulled it apart to show her décolletage. Sabrina leaned in a little closer to see the thin red scars – almost white – running from her collarbone down below where she could see. “I’m pretty sure these are always going to be there.”

“And so you feel frustrated because you want to move on but you can’t?”

Bri’s shoulders slumped. “Every time I take my shirt off, I’m reminded of him.”

Sabrina closed her eyes and concentrated. “You feel… grief. You feel shame. You feel embarrassment.” She opened her eyes and looked at Bri curiously. “Is that typical for when you think about these scars?”

Bri nodded slowly.

“Am I correct in thinking that they represent not just when you almost died but the moment you lost control?”

Bri furrowed her brows in thought. Sabrina felt a twinge of confusion from her. “I guess so.”

“Walk me through the way you survived,” Sabrina instructed her. “You said you fought him off before Felix arrived. How?”

Bri held up her wrist and shook her bracelet. “My bracelet broke, and I shocked him with the exposed wires,” she explained. “He ran away.”

Sabrina nodded. “So you didn’t have control, but then this let you take some back? Could your scars represent not your _loss_ of control but your struggle to _regain_ control?” she asked. “Scars show what we went through and survived; these scars are no different. He tried to kill you, but you survived the attack. And that’s no mean feat.”

Bri shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at them and not think of what the Ripper did.”

“No, you probably won’t,” Sabrina agreed sympathetically.

“And I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way I felt when he was on top of me.” She shuddered. “When he was readying the knife…”

Sabrina nodded. “But at the same time, you have proven yourself to be stronger than the trauma. In the moment you wanted to die, but you fought back. You had given up, but you didn’t give up.”

Bri nodded.

Sabrina let out a breath. “This isn’t going to be easy. You might never forget what happened. But this trauma does not define you.”

Bri sighed. “I know; Felix and Anne have both said the same thing. But it’s nice to hear it again.”


	3. Small Group 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bri and Aisha working with Sabrina

“Are you _sure_ about this?” Sabrina asked, her face taking on a look of panic. Her small group was supposed to begin in just a matter of minutes, but on the way there she had pulled Emilie into one of the unused rooms a few doors down from where they were waiting for her to join them. “I don’t know if I’m really equipped to help Aisha and Bri together. It was challenging enough with Bri, but we both felt how intense Aisha’s emotions were yesterday evening. Her trauma was so intense–”

“It was severe,” Emilie agreed with a sympathetic nod, holding up a hand to forestall her objections. “But I have full confidence in your ability to work with her. Remember, we’re not trying to solve all their problems; we’re just trying to help them process their emotions a little better and start to heal together.”

Sabrina frowned and sighed heavily. “I don’t know if I can do that for her,” she admitted, her shoulders slumping.

“I need you for this,” Emilie told her simply. Sabrina felt the stress coming off of her and looked up in surprise. “I can’t do both of these small groups by myself, and I think it would be a mistake to ask you to counsel your best friend – it will be enough of a challenge for _me_ as it is.” Sabrina nodded in acknowledgement but still gave her a doubtful look. Emilie squeezed her shoulder gently. Some of Emilie’s stress dissipated, replaced by confidence. “You won’t be on your own in there. If Nooroo senses that you are struggling, he can come and find me for an assist.”

Nooroo rose out of her pocket and came to rest on her shoulder, his wings fluttering against her neck. “I know you can do this, Mistress,” he assured her. “With how well you have helped Chloe, you can help these two, also.”

Sabrina cupped her hand around Nooroo and closed her eyes, drawing in a calming breath. Nooroo was going to be there with her, and he had far more experience than either her _or_ Emilie at this. Finally she exhaled slowly, opened her eyes, and nodded in resignation. Emilie gave her an encouraging smile, and Sabrina stepped out of the room and back into the hallway.

“Don’t try to fix everything all at once,” Emilie reminded her. “And don’t try to do too much; it’s okay to let them guide the conversation. All you have to do is facilitate it.”

Sabrina could feel Emilie’s nervous excitement, matching her own anxiety and that of the two counselees waiting for her in the counseling room. She could handle this – Emilie and Nooroo both thought so. Slowly she allowed herself to fall into the mindset she would need before opening the door and stepping inside. Inside Bri and Aisha sat at two corners of the triangle of chairs in the middle of the room. Aisha was looking at the wall, studying a picture; Bri appeared to be reading something on the screen of one of her bracelets.

“How are you two doing?” Sabrina asked, taking the empty chair facing them. Nooroo flitted off of Sabrina’s shoulder and landed on the small end table next to her.

“Considering the reason we’re here…” Bri muttered sullenly, looking up from her bracelet with a frown. Her eyes drifted to Aisha, and Sabrina felt Bri’s nervousness spike.

“It is difficult to open up in front of someone, especially on something as personal as this,” Sabrina acknowledged with a nod. “But the benefit of this exercise is the opportunity for you to see that you aren’t alone. You have friends who care about and support you, and that can also include the others in this group. The two of you had very different experiences, but I think you can still learn from each other. Both of you can survive this trauma and grow from it.”

Aisha looked over at Bri and shook her head, shame sneaking into her emotions. “I–I can’t imagine someone as strong as you letting anyone do what happened to me to you.”

Sabrina felt a surge of surprise from Bri that turned to guilt, and quickly commented, “Strength doesn’t have anything to do with it. The strongest person can experience a moment of weakness or loss of control. And experiencing something like you went through doesn’t make you _weak_.”

Aisha frowned and stared down at her hands. “But I _am_ weak. I can’t do anything like the rest of you can. I couldn’t even protect myself.”

“You’re ashamed of yourself because you were helpless,” Sabrina observed, nodding sympathetically. “A trauma like you went through often brings with it a feeling of helplessness, a loss of control. I imagine that before what happened to you, you both had some measure of control over your lives, even if you didn’t think about it in those terms. But then in a moment you lost control over not only your life but even your body.”

Bri nodded, her emotions shifting to frustration. “I’m a superhero,” she agreed, a hard set to her mouth. “I built a mechanized suit that I can use to fly. If the Ripper had attacked me in my suit, I would have punched his head off – or at least that was what I thought. But then in that moment, when I really needed it, I didn’t have it. My bracelets failed me. I couldn’t do _anything_ to save myself. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think – everything was just _him_.”

Aisha gasped. “That’s exactly what I felt! Life in our village wasn’t perfect – we worked hard, and even so we still sometimes were hungry – but it was what I understood. Mother and Father gave us what she could, even though it wasn’t much. I didn’t have too many choices or much freedom, but I was still my own person. And then when Popo and his men arrived, I didn’t have _any_ choices. _He_ chose me. _He_ took me. _He_ made the decisions. And there was nothing I could do about it.”

Bri frowned, guilt rising in her. “I _did_ have a choice – I could have gone home sooner. I could have called Anne or let Felix walk partway with me. I didn’t have to be out walking at night without anyone else, knowing that a rapist was out. I had the choice, but I made the wrong one. And that one mistake was when I screwed up.”

“You feel guilty because your choice put you in that position,” Sabrina responded. Bri nodded. “Remember, whatever choice _you_ made didn’t _cause_ him to attack you. His actions are _his_ fault, not yours. But what about for you, Aisha? Do you feel the same guilt as Bri? Do you feel like your own choice contributed in some way to what happened to you?”

Aisha shook her head. “I didn’t have any choice when it came to Popo,” she answered. “I didn’t choose for him to appear, I didn’t choose for him to touch me, I didn’t choose for him to…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Shame almost overwhelmed her; she cringed in her chair.

“Breathe,” Sabrina told her softly. “You aren’t there. You’re safe.”

Aisha forced herself to inhale and exhale slowly before opening her eyes. Her lower lip trembled; she grabbed her arm and squeezed. Nooroo sprang off the table and alit on Aisha’s knee, his wings fluttering. She looked down at him in surprise, her lips cracking into a smile, and rubbed his head with one finger. “You’re so cute! Do you know Growll? Or Minii?”

“It has been millennia since I saw either of them!” replied Nooroo, leaning into her hand. “Since the fall of Atlantis, in fact.”

Bri stared at Aisha in shock. “That–that’s almost _exactly_ what happened to me the second time I saw the Ripper: even though I had my suit, even though my partner was there, even though my best friend needed me… I–I froze.”

“ _You_ froze?” Aisha looked up at her, eyes widening in surprise. “But you’re a superhero!”

Bri looked away, her cheeks flushed in shame. “I’m not proud of it. If I’d been on my own, there’s no way I could have fought him.”

“Superheroes can still make mistakes and doubt themselves,” Sabrina pointed out. “With the Heroes of Paris, I couldn’t _begin_ to list the number of times I’ve sensed the other heroes starting to panic or freeze up because of an overwhelming situation. How did you come through it?” she asked Bri.

“I wasn’t alone,” Bri answered. “When we fought the Ripper, Felix helped me through it. Even just knowing that he was there made a huge impact.”

Aisha frowned. “I know I wasn’t by myself in the camp. Abdi was there, too – my brother. But I was so upset with him for agreeing to work for Popo that I barely spoke to him for the first four months. But I would talk to Growll, his Kwami. He didn’t visit me often, but some nights the only way I could sleep was because he was there.”

Bri hummed. “There have been a few times in the last month that the only reason I could function was because of my partner’s Kwami, Barkk.”

From his position on Aisha’s knee, Nooroo perked up. “The canine Kwamis are especially good for encouraging their ‘pack’,” he informed them.

Sabrina smiled. “It’s not _just_ them,” she told him, giggling. Turning to the other two, she continued, “You were both fortunate enough to not be alone. Do you want to go into that a little more?”

“Even though I was upset with him, I still needed Abdi,” Aisha began. “And since we moved into the temple I’ve had so much support from everyone else there. At the–at the–” She swallowed. Nooroo flitted up to nuzzle against her cheek. “At the camp I didn’t feel like I could trust anyone; at the temple I know I can trust everyone.”

“Whenever I feel alone, all I need to do is call Felix or Anne,” Bri agreed. “It’s a reminder that I’m not alone, that the Ripper _didn’t_ take that away from me. Every time I remember what he tried to do to me it’s like the wound is reopened. But then I remember Felix arriving afterward and how much he cared. And how he and Anne both were there for me after it happened. Every time I’m having trouble sleeping or find myself thinking about what happened, I call Felix or Anne.”

“Your friends have encouraged you and helped you to heal,” Sabrina reflected, smiling. “What else has helped for you?”

“Trying to find purpose or meaning in it,” Bri responded. “I know it can’t make what happened to me just go away, but if I can stop another woman from ever going through this…”

“You’re finding meaning in your own trauma by giving others the ability to fight back if they’re in that situation.” Sabrina nodded. “Have you been able to find meaning in what happened to you?” she asked Aisha.

Aisha’s emotions were all in a jumble – Sabrina tensed – Nooroo shook his head the slightest bit at Sabrina, giving her an encouraging smile. Finally Aisha nodded hesitantly. “A little. It was only because of what happened to me that I’m now at the Somali Temple – which has been amazing. And who knows what would have happened with… with Popo… if Abdi hadn’t helped Chloe and the others to fight him? At least now that–that–that _monster_ can’t hurt anyone else.”

“That was probably the best thing for my recovery,” agreed Bri, nodding. “The Ripper is dead and will never hurt anyone ever again, and I was even there to help finish him off.”

“I couldn’t fight Popo at all,” whispered Aisha sadly. “He was so much stronger than me. I _tried_ to fight him the first time, but it just made him angry. And the angrier he got, the more he hurt me. In the end all I could do was close my eyes and pray for it to end. Abdi helped kill him, but I couldn’t do a thing for myself.”

“I’m sorry.” Bri put a hand on Aisha’s hand. “I wish there were something I could do.”

“Not every victim is able to fight,” Sabrina told her. “Sometimes all that’s possible is just to survive. Simply surviving the trauma and not allowing it to define you is what makes you strong.”


	4. Aisha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emilie helps Aisha process her emotions

Emilie exhaled slowly, setting a placid expression on her face. The swirl of tangled emotions emanating from the girl in front of her would take every bit of Emilie’s concentration to help her untangle and sort out. At the group meeting she had only gotten a hint of what was going on under the surface. Here, without any distractions, Emilie could plumb the depths of the shame and pain and terror and fear and suffering and–

Emilie pulled in another shaky breath and dragged herself out of the morass lurking below the surface. If she was going to help this girl, she couldn’t allow herself to get bogged down in the details. “And how are you feeling today, sweetheart?” she asked calmly.

“Better,” Aisha responded, though her frown and attendant spike of anxiety hinted otherwise.

“Did you sleep okay in an unfamiliar bed?” Emilie smiled warmly to set her at ease. “I always find that it takes a bit to get used to new surroundings.”

Aisha nodded. “It did take me a little bit to get to sleep, but the bed here is so _soft_! I don’t think I’ve ever had a bed so soft. Abdi and I had to share a bed growing up, and it wasn’t much better than sleeping on the floor – just sleeping on a couple of blankets. My bed at the Temple now is so much nicer than that, but it’s nothing to compare to this one. And last year I could _never_ sleep well because–”

A wave of terror broke over Aisha, and it took all of her self-control for Emilie not to gasp. The girl trembled, quivering in her seat, her eyes clenched tightly shut. Emilie could feel the terror building, crashing against the emotional dykes that Aisha had erected in her mind to hold it at bay and keep it from overwhelming her paltry defenses. Nooroo patted Emilie’s cheek encouragingly and flitted across to sit on Aisha’s knee, his wings fluttering against her hand. The girl’s emotions hardly changed. Emilie steeled herself and mentally reached into her pool of chi, withdrawing a glowing hand. Without moving her physical body, she stretched out her chi-infused hand to the ocean of Aisha’s emotions, finding her terror and shame, and inhaled, removing as much of the negative emotions as she could handle. Fear swamped Emilie’s own defenses, and she swallowed back bile at the mingled shame and guilt. Nooroo gave her a look, his eyes widening – there was a reason she had swapped miraculous with Sabrina for this session. Emilie set her jaw firmly, forcing herself to remember her training. She held her breath for a long minute and exhaled, releasing the excess negative emotions into the atmosphere as she did so. Opening her eyes, she examined Aisha closely. Her breathing had evened out, but the lines of tension crisscrossing her drawn face still showed the battle raging within her as the pain and terror threatened to drown her. Once more, Emilie reached into her own chi, a golden ocean of vitality and strength, and repeated the process, wicking away more of Aisha’s terror and anxiety and shame.

Finally, Aisha opened her eyes, anxiously rubbing Nooroo’s head, and sniffed. Her negative emotions were back under her control. Emilie allowed herself to relax into her armchair just a fraction. “It will help if you can talk through what was going through your mind just now,” Emilie told her gently.

Aisha’s breathing hitched, but she nodded reluctantly. “I was remembering the first time Popo–that–that he…” Her emotion level rose again.

“Breathe with me,” Emilie instructed, taking in a slow breath and releasing it. Aisha copied the action. “Now close your eyes and picture yourself in familiar surroundings. Your temple has a waterfall, right?” Aisha nodded. “Picture yourself sitting in the pond at the base of the waterfall, surrounded by your friends. The sun shines brightly on your face, warming you despite the cold water. The water tumbles down around you. It washes over you and disappears down the stream, never to be seen again. You are calm. You are safe. Your emotions are still there, but they pass you by just like the water.”

Aisha’s fear and anxiety dropped, replaced with a level of calm. “It was just after sundown when the militants arrived,” she began, speaking woodenly, her eyes closed and her hands clenched into tight fists, trembling in her lap. “We were sitting down to eat when men with guns burst into our home. Father tried to fight, but the man hit him in the head with the butt of his gun before shooting him in the face. There was so much blood – his head–” She swallowed. “Mother screamed, and another man grabbed her by the hair and dragged her across the room to the bed. I could still hear her screams behind me as the man who killed Father forced Abdi and me out of the house. A couple minutes later, our house was on fire, Mother and Father still inside.”

“I can imagine that was the most terrifying moment of your life to that point,” Emilie observed, tapping into Aisha’s remembered terror and drawing a tiny bit out. “Was that the first time you had ever _truly_ felt unsafe?”

“Life wasn’t exactly easy,” responded Aisha, “but I always thought Father would protect me – but then he wasn’t there anymore.” Her emotions turned sad and she sniffed.

Emilie held out a box of tissues and gave her a sympathetic smile. “You lost so much, and all at once.”

Aisha pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. “Popo never even gave me a chance to grieve,” she whispered, staring down at the floor. “The house was still burning behind us – I thought I could hear Mother’s screams over the crackling of the fire – when the men herded us into the crowd in front of Popo. One of his men – Goota-Lolaa – separated the boys from the rest of the group. Abdi resisted, but Goota-Lolaa hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle and threatened to shoot him. That was when I let go of his hand, and he went with the others. Then Popo waved a hand for his men to take what girls they wanted, and the one who had killed Father grabbed my shoulder.” Unconsciously she reached up to rub her shoulder. Emilie watched her quietly. Her emotions still seemed to be under control. “I still don’t know why Popo stopped him. But I was grateful at first! I had heard enough stories to know what was going to happen, and I thought he had spared me.”

Her emotions turned to shame, and Emilie gently consoled her, “You could never have prepared for what he did to you.”

“I know,” Aisha admitted, her lower lip trembling. Her voice cracked. Nooroo nuzzled against her hand and she sniffed. “It hurt. So much. Every centimeter of my body hurt. Every night he would do it. It didn’t matter what I said or what I did. It didn’t matter how much I begged or pleaded or screamed. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t escape. I started to wish for death. But even _that_ wasn’t in my power.”

Emilie concentrated on Aisha’s emotions, which were starting to build again. “You are safe,” she reminded her. “He will never hurt you or anyone else again. You are in control. Can you repeat that for me?”

Aisha closed her eyes. “I am safe,” she whispered. “He won’t hurt me again. I’m in control.”

“That’s good!” Emilie praised her softly. “I can imagine that you felt very powerless over the last year. Is that accurate?”

“I couldn’t do anything for myself,” Aisha agreed sadly. “Popo never left me alone – or not for very long. He didn’t allow me to do anything for myself. There was nowhere I could go, nothing I could do. I was a prisoner.”

“You were powerless.” Emilie pursed her lips sympathetically. “ _Were_ ,” she emphasized. “But now you are no longer powerless, are you?”

Aisha shook her head. “I don’t have to do anything _I_ don’t want to do. I can choose where to live or what to do!”

“You’ve taken back control.”

“I… I think this is actually the first time in my _life_ that’s been true,” Aisha agreed, eyes widening in realization. “Even before, I was still reliant on my parents. But not… not even that now.” Her emotions twisted – happiness and grief warring against each other. “There’s still Mohamed and Guardian Said, but that’s it.”

“I know that isn’t an easy realization for you to have,” Emilie warned her. “Especially after losing your parents. But after the lack of control your imprisonment brought with it, the opportunity to make your own choices on _anything_ is not something you can take lightly.”

Aisha nodded slowly, though her emotions remained clouded.

“You still feel shame because of what he did to you,” Emilie observed delicately.

Aisha’s head bowed. “He…” She swallowed heavily. “Who would want me after he… did what he did to me?”

“You think that his actions have isolated you from your village or your people,” Emilie guessed. “That because of what he did, you cannot fit in again.” Aisha nodded. “Tell me,” Emilie responded, “do you have a village now?”

Aisha shook her head, the grief coming back to the fore. Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. “No. it was wiped out.”

“What about the temple? Have you been isolated or made to feel unwelcome there?”

“Of course not!” Aisha insisted, eyes widening in surprise. “The opposite: Nawal and Mohamed go out of their way to make sure I feel welcome and like I’m part of the group.”

“Has your brother disowned you?”

“No.”

“As a matter of fact, you now have a family at the temple that loves you and wants what’s best for you.”

“I know that,” Aisha agreed, nodding. Her shoulders slumped and she frowned. “But sometimes it’s just hard to remember that Abdi and Nawal and the others really have accepted me, despite what Popo did to me.”

“It is going to take time for you to get there,” Emilie acknowledged with a sympathetic smile, “but the ability to process your emotions in a healthy manner which we’re working on this week will help you understand why you feel the way you do and keep from becoming so overwhelmed in the future. You’ve felt overwhelmed by your emotions, haven’t you?”

Aisha nodded.

“I can see that you have learned to cope by hiding away from your emotions, burying them where they can’t find you.”

“It’s just–sometimes it’s just too much.”

“And sometimes hiding them away is all you _can_ do,” Emilie told her, scooting her chair closer and holding out her hands. Aisha placed her hands on Emilie’s and looked her in the eye, grief plain in her face. Nooroo shifted to sit on top of their joined hands. Emilie took a calming breath and told Aisha, “Hiding away from your emotions can also be unhealthy when you do it for a long time – especially when they can escape. And you don’t need to hide from them right now. This week I’m going to help you learn how to process your emotions. With my miraculous I can ease your emotions a little bit, take enough off of them to keep you from becoming overwhelmed in the future. I can’t be there to do it for you _every_ time, but this week I’m going to meet with you every day to teach you some exercises and techniques that you can do on your own to process your emotions in a healthy manner, without becoming overwhelmed. But for the best results you’ll have to practice, and you’ll have to use these regularly, not just when you start to feel overwhelmed.”

Aisha nodded, a hint of hope starting to form alongside the fear and pain and grief.

Emilie smiled confidently and gently squeezed her hands. “Good. Now let’s start with your breathing.”


	5. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the group is home for the week, leaving Amelie to host Aisha and Hoda for breakfast

Amelie was the first one to enter the dining room on Monday morning. Last night Bri, Anne, Emilie, Chloe, and Sabrina had all returned home for the week. For now, Amelie and Duusu were here alone with Aisha and Hoda, the two for whom the “portal lag” of returning home would be the most extreme – and the two who didn’t have to go to classes during the week. However, Emilie would return later that day, and Sabrina on Tuesday afternoon, to lead some midweek sessions as they fit into the participants’ schedules. Amelie poured herself a cup of tea and took a slow, measured breath, trying to balance her emotions the way Emilie had taught her, allowing her own anxiety and nervousness to float out into the atmosphere before either of the girls arrived. Duusu sat on a tea saucer in front of a grapefruit half, sprinkling a bit of salt on top of it. “How do you think this is going so far?” Amelie asked the Kwami, sipping her tea pensively and examining the small pile of scones in the centre of the table.

“It’s a difficult process,” Duusu admitted, pulling out a grapefruit section and frowning. He popped it in his mouth, his eyes closing in pleasure, and clapped his paws together before beaming up at her. “But it’s so amazing of you and Miss Emilie and Miss Sabrina to try to help them! You can do it, no problem!”

Amelie allowed herself a small smile at the Kwami’s infectious enthusiasm. “I do hope so,” she agreed as a large green head became visible around the corner from the hallway.

“I hope I’m not intruding,” Hoda apologized, wringing her hands.

Amelie could sense something from her, though not anything she could identify. From the alien’s expression, she guessed that Hoda was nervous. Amelie smiled as widely as she could. “Of course not, dear,” she assured her, waving her in. “What would you like for breakfast?”

“Steak, rare?” Hoda cautiously eased herself down into one of the specially-reinforced chairs the Australian Guardian Council had provided. “Normally I like my meat uncooked, but I understand that’s typically frowned on here, so…” She shrugged one shoulder noncommittally. “I’m a guest on your planet, so I guess I can behave myself.”

Amelie typed the order into her phone and sent it to the kitchen. That had been another challenge in organizing this retreat. While the other four wouldn’t raise any suspicions, no amount of money would convince the chef to forget that he had served a legitimate extraterrestrial, so Amelie had had to give both him and the maid a week of paid vacation and explore alternative staffing options. Fortunately, the Heroes of Paris had provided a simple solution. Only a couple minutes later Marianne Lenoir pushed the kitchen door open with a cart on which she had a single platter with two enormous raw steaks stacked on top of each other. It was a benefit of their close association with all the Miraculous Temples, Amelie mused, that they could solicit assistance from everywhere.

Hoda’s eyes widened as she lifted the platter off the cart and laid it gently on the table. She looked up at Amelie in amazement. “You–you’re okay with me eating it raw?”

Amelie chuckled. “Absolutely! You may be a guest on this _planet_ , but right now you’re a guest in my house, and I don’t want any visitors leaving unhappy. So you can eat your food however you want it.”

Hoda let out a breath. “Thank you! And thank you, also,” she added, turning to Marianne. “This looks amazing.” She picked up the steak knife next to her platter, but the thin knife slipped out of her grasp and clattered onto the table. Hoda stared down at it in frustration, her eyes narrowing. A string of sibilant noises escaped her lips.

Amelie heard a high-pitched whine starting from the direction of Duusu’s half-finished grapefruit; the Kwami looked up at her with wide eyes and trembling lower lip. Amelie cleared her throat, and Hoda froze, staring at her. “There’s no need for you to stand on ceremony here,” Amelie announced, selecting a scone from the pastry plate and nibbling off one end.

Hoda sighed and nodded in relief. Ignoring the silverware, she speared the top steak with one of her long talons and carefully tore off a piece, closing her eyes and humming. “It’s not quite shmergot, but your beef still tastes pretty good.”

Amelie chuckled on feeling what she assumed was happiness from Hoda. “We only buy the best here!” Seeing that Marianne was still standing near the doorway, Amelie flushed in embarrassment. “I’m sorry; you must be tired.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Marianne assured her. “After spending the last few months chasing around a two-year-old for the first time in ages, these old bones can stand still for a few minutes.”

“Even so, you’re welcome to have a seat if you wish.”

Marianne pursed her lips in thought, but at that moment Amelie felt another set of emotions draw close. She turned toward the doorway just as Aisha appeared, wiping the sleep from her eyes and yawning.

“What can I get for you, dearie?” Marianne asked, fixing her with a kindly smile. “How does bacon and eggs and toast sound?”

Aisha’s eyes widened, a flash of anxiety shooting through her. “Eggs are okay, but no bacon for me.”

“We bought turkey bacon for this week,” Amelie explained quickly.

“Oh.” Aisha’s anxiety shifted into gratitude. She thought for a moment. “I think I’ll pass on it anyways,” she decided, sitting down beside Hoda and pouring herself a mug of coffee. “But thank you. Eggs sound good.”

“I’ll get your eggs and be back in a moment!” Marianne carefully pushed her cart out of the dining room, leaving the three of them alone.

“So how are you fitting in at the Somali Temple?” Hoda asked Aisha before biting of another large chunk of her steak. Amelie kept her face neutral; she couldn’t quite parse out the alien’s feeling.

Aisha smiled eagerly. “I don’t know the last time I’ve been so happy!” she gushed. “Not since–” She froze; her emotions turned dark. Amelie’s eyes darted over to Duusu, whose face had become sombre. Amelie opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Aisha shook her head and blinked a couple times, her eyes refocusing on Hoda. “Yeah…” She coughed. “I don’t have to worry anymore; the Temple is safe. And I’m not alone. Abdi is there, of course, and we can go for walks around the Temple or even go to the village together whenever we want. And Nawal – you remember Ngarayap, the Ant Miraculous? Nawal and Shadya – she’s one of the Guardian Initiates – they call me their ‘little sister.’ Everyone is just so nice!”

“I’m glad to hear it!” Hoda told her, nodding her head slowly.

“But what about you?” Aisha asked curiously. “I hope you are making friends in Australia.”

Hoda bobbed her head. “A few,” she allowed. “When we first arrived, Dane – his name is Cyclone, and he has the Anklyosaur Miraculous – he hollowed out the cave where Father and I are living – a couple of the craftsmen have weaved rugs for us with Shunjar patterns, so it’s starting to look like a little slice of home. Since then Dane and a few of his friends have invited me to go swimming with them a few times.”

“That’s so cool!” Aisha enthused. “You remember how our Temple has the waterfall? Well, sometimes Maaza will ride the waterfall down to the lake at the bottom. I want to try it, but I never learned how to swim. Nawal said she’ll teach me, but we haven’t had a chance yet – we’ve all just been too busy. ”

“That is a very good skill to have, once you have an opportunity to learn it,” Amelie observed, holding out the tray of pastries to her.

“I started school last month,” Aisha explained around a mouthful of scone. “Mohamed and Master Said offered to teach me since I really didn’t get much school before now. Master Said even said he would train me as a Guardian Initiate like Shadya if I want, but I’m not sure about that. And I’ve been helping in the kitchen, too. They’re keeping me really busy, which is awesome, especially after last year when Popo–” She shivered and clenched her eyes shut, her emotions flooded with anxiety and terror.

Amelie gasped as Aisha’s emotions washed over her. Duusu’s mouth turned down into a frown, and he zipped off the table. Amelie watched the Kwami nervously, ready to snatch him out of the air if necessary, but he only settled onto Aisha’s shoulder, allowing his tail to brush against her shoulder blade. Ameli reached across the table and covered one of Aisha’s hands with her own as Hoda did the same with her other hand. The girl’s terror level didn’t change. “You are safe here,” Amelie whispered gently. “He is never going to hurt you again.” Aisha nodded curtly. “Breathe with me,” Amelie instructed, inhaling slowly, holding for a minute, and then exhaling. She gave Hoda a look, and the alien joined her in the breathing exercise.

Slowly Aisha started to breathe with them. After several minutes, her terror abated and she opened her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, sniffling, her previous emotions replaced with shame.

“Nothing to be sorry about, dear,” Amelie assured her, waving her hand dismissively. “You’re among friends. And we’re here to help you.” The girl nodded, though she still felt unsure and imbalanced. Amelie sighed sympathetically and squeezed Aisha’s hand. “So what have you been doing in Australia, Hoda?” Amelie asked, turning to the other without taking her hand off of Aisha’s.

Hoda started. “Oh! Yeah, like I said, Father is working at the spaceport and helping them work on building their space-planes, so he’s really happy – that’s why he joined the Navy in the first place. And New Atlantis has these intervention teams, and I’m joining one of them. There are five or six members on a team, and I’m the one member of my team that doesn’t have magic or a miraculous. We haven’t gone on any missions yet, but the others say it’s just a matter of time. And in the meantime, I’ve been sparring with Boaz, or Big Blue – one of the team’s miraculous users – to recover my strength and endurance.”

“It’s wonderful that you have found a new purpose after the trauma you experienced on first arriving here,” Amelie told her. “And it sounds like you have people there who care about you – both of you!”

Hoda nodded in agreement. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” she admitted, “but I guess that’s right. After everything that happened, I didn’t know if I would _ever_ have a friend again – until Aisha, I mean. And now I have a bunch of friends.”

Recovered, Aisha smiled brightly. “Same,” she agreed, nodding. “It feels… nice to have somewhere I belong.”

“I’m so glad to hear it!” Amelie replied. Taking Hoda’s hand with her free hand and squeezing both girls’ hands, she smiled warmly. “And remember: no matter what, you can always belong here.”


	6. Hoda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoda's therapy session with Sabrina

“I know after everything that happened I really shouldn’t be complaining _now_ …”

Sabrina hummed pensively and examined Hoda’s features carefully. She couldn’t quite identify the swirl of emotions emanating from the alien; she and Emilie had discussed the phenomenon at length when they decided to put together this retreat. Sabrina still hadn’t forgotten the summer, when she had first encountered a Shunjar and found his emotions to be completely incomprehensible. Emilie had suggested that perhaps they just needed practice since they were unfamiliar with Shunjar minds and emotions. Reaching out and focusing in on what Hoda was feeling, Sabrina sensed that same strange mixture of emotions, but with an undercurrent of something that she could only describe as loneliness. “And yet you feel lonely?” she asked to test the theory.

Hoda’s shoulders slumped. “I feel terrible for even thinking it, but… yes,” she admitted. Her emotions changed the slightest bit. “I spent a year tied up in a pen like an exotic animal in a zoo, with hardly anyone around except when they were going to abuse me. Father couldn’t even come _near_ me for fear that it would provoke Popo or Goota-Lolaa. Now I’m out of that prison, free to interact with people and go wherever I want. But it’s not the same. I live with Father, and he is absolutely thrilled with our new living arrangements in New Atlantis. But aside from Father, I’m surrounded by humans. Don’t get me wrong: I like you, but… I still miss seeing other Shunjar.”

Sabrina nodded sympathetically. “You’re a stranger on a strange planet,” she noted. “Loneliness is understandable.” She chuckled. “Even if you _weren’t_ surrounded by aliens, you would still be a stranger here. Being a completely different species just highlights that fact. That you have your father with you is certainly a good thing, but it still doesn’t change that there are only the two of you. But let’s explore this loneliness a little further: has the Australian Temple-Island accepted you?”

Hoda’s lips turned down into a frown. A spurt of something that felt a little like anger shot through her before disappearing. “The members of my team have all welcomed me,” she confirmed, nodding slowly. “They were a little hesitant at first, but that faded and now they don’t treat me any differently. Walking around the city it’s the same story. The odd looks on the street stopped after our first two weeks there – before that I felt like I was living in a zoo again. On some level I think we’ve been accepted there. But that’s the people on the street; the Guardians’ Council itself doesn’t seem to trust us all that much. Mohamed said he would vouch for us, and he did. They gave us a home and gave us jobs – Father loves what he’s doing at the Spaceport; it’s exactly what he always wanted to be doing. For me?” She shrugged one shoulder. “It feels like they are just trying to keep us close to watch us.”

“Why do you think they don’t trust you? Something they said?”

“I’m not sure,” Hoda admitted, her forehead knitting together in concentration. “Not anything they’ve _said_ , but the looks and the way they say it. I couldn’t tell at first – it took some time to figure out human expressions. But I look at you and Aisha and Dane, and then I look at Jack and Joanna, and there’s a little difference when you talk to me.”

Sabrina exhaled and frowned, concentrating on Hoda’s tangled-up emotions. “I sense that their lack of trust makes you feel… angry? Frustrated? Sad?”

Hoda’s eyes narrowed. “Well… yes. To all of it, I think.” She hesitated. “I just wish I knew why they don’t trust me. Is it because I’m not human?”

Sabrina shrugged sadly. “I don’t know. I can’t really speak for them,” she began, “but I can speak for myself and the Heroes of Paris. A couple months ago we met another Shunjar in Paris. He offered us help in exchange for helping him return home. Instead, he tried to use us to summon a Shunjar warship in the system that would potentially have started an invasion. In the process of stopping him, Max got hurt. I’m afraid that soured some of my friends on the idea of trusting non-humans, and that may have carried over to the other Guardian groups after we explained to them what had happened. Although you aren’t the only non-human we know – or even the only non-human hero.”

A growl emanated from Hoda’s throat. “So you mean your people don’t like _me_ because of _another_ Shunjar? Who was this?”

Sabrina held up a hand in a placating gesture. “I’m not saying that anyone dis _likes_ you; I’m saying they might mis _trust_ you because of him. He told us to call him ‘Hugo’.”

“‘Hugo’…” repeated Hoda slowly, tapping her mouth. “That sounds like our captain’s name. He was much more of a hardliner than most of the others on the ship were. When we left, he was far more excited about the prospect of conflict and glory than anyone else. But his enthusiasm was rather infectious – there were a few others who were also pretty gung-ho about fighting.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I guess a part of me can understand your reluctance if he was the first Shunjar you ever met.” Her emotions shifted again, returning to anger. “But all the same, it still hurts to be prejudged based on what _he_ did, rather than being accepted for who _I_ am.”

Sabrina nodded. “That must be difficult: you are _so_ different from everyone else at the Australian Temple-Island, and it’s impossible not to be recognized. And unlike our _other_ non-human friend, _you_ can’t even hide that fact. And then for them to be suspicious of you for no other reason than your species…”

“I had hoped this would be an opportunity to prove myself, that it might even be a fresh start after what happened when we first arrived,” Hoda said sadly. “But instead I’m fighting against a preconceived notion of what a Shunjar is.” She let out a breath, her emotions coming into conflict. “And I’m not even sure if I’m doing the right thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I feel conflicted,” Hoda admitted, her emotions turning sad. “When I joined the Navy, I swore an oath of loyalty to the Empire. But now I find myself not just living on but even serving a different planet. What happens when those two loyalties come into conflict?”

“Do you think they will?”

Hoda shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope they don’t. I don’t _want_ my new human friends to be dragged into a war they – _you_ – don’t want. After everything Aisha went through, I don’t want her to go through something like that. And Dane and Boaz and Abdi would all have to fight them. There’s no question: people I know would get hurt on both sides if that happened. That’s not what I want.”

Sabrina smiled. “That is not something I want to see, either. Do you think war is what would happen if humans and Shunjar met? It didn’t happen with you and your father.” Hoda raised an eyebrow dubiously. “Or at least not after Chloe and the others stopped the monster who had been trying to hurt you…” Sabrina amended, heat rising her cheeks. Nooroo looked over at her from his position on a bookcase and pantomimed taking a deep breath. Sabrina inhaled slowly and allowed her embarrassment to dissipate, refocusing her attention on Hoda.

“I was just a cadet,” replied Hoda, scoffing. “I want to think humans and Shunjar could coexist without fighting. But my people have a pretty strict ‘for or against us’ mindset these days – we have to, considering how long we’ve been at war.”

“We’re not at war with the Shunjar, though,” Sabrina pointed out.

Hoda nodded slowly. “That’s true.”

Sabrina let out a breath. “Your position now isn’t really that of a soldier – we don’t expect you to fight anyone or conquer anywhere or anything like that. That’s not what we do. We help people and protect the innocent – whatever form that takes.”

Hoda hummed. “I suppose that isn’t so bad,” she acknowledged. “I do want to help people. Especially after your people freed me from that monster and gave me a home.”

“I believe you,” Sabrina told her. “And I am glad that you have this opportunity to give back!” She paused, sighed heavily. “So tell me about Popo.”

Hoda’s anger spiked. “What’s to tell?” she retorted, her voice rising in volume. “He shoved me in a cage, threw food at me, and treated me like an animal. He never raised his _own_ hand to hurt me – oh, no, he would use his minions for that. Goota-Lolaa seemed to enjoy it a whole lot more than any of the others. Before I caught on and stopped giving him any reaction, he had already figured out where all the most painful places were to hit me – I still have the scars. Then Popo made Cadaabta Ey whip me until my back was raw. After the fact, Abdi _said_ it was only because he was trying to protect Aisha, but every so often I still think about it and wonder. I wanted to rip his head off when he freed me.”

“I imagine it was dehumanizing,” Sabrina observed.

“De… _human_ … izing,” Hoda deadpanned.

Sabrina grimaced. “Perhaps not the right word for it. I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m still unpracticed at interacting with non-humans.”

Hoda chuckled. “It did make me question how civilized this planet actually was,” she admitted.

“You’re not the only one who questions that!” Sabrina noted wryly. She hummed contemplatively. “Anyone would be angry under those circumstances.”

“The only bright spot to the whole experience was Aisha.”

“You were close?”

Hoda snorted. “Not really – or at least not at first,” she replied, shaking her head. “Aisha was just another human face in a sea of human faces, and I saw more than enough of those, and all of them looked at me like I was nothing more than a mildly-interesting insect. But then Aisha started sneaking over to visit me during the day when the rest of the camp was busy doing something else and bringing me a little extra food. She never stayed long or said anything at first. But over time she started staying longer. Eventually she worked up the courage to speak to me, and that’s when we started to become… friends.”

“I can imagine that was a shock.”

“By then I had started to wonder if _all_ humans were like Popo: ruthless, cruel, willing to hurt other sentient beings just for their own amusement.” Hoda let out a heavy breath. “Of course, considering what he was doing to _her_ , she couldn’t give me all that much hope that there were better humans out there: the one _good_ human I had met was _herself_ being abused by a _cruel_ human. But then I find out that Popo wasn’t even a _human_ …”

“So even before Abdi and Chloe and the rest actually rescued you from Popo, it sounds like Aisha was your first example of human compassion,” Sabrina observed. “From the way you talk about her, she had a profound impact on you.”

Hoda nodded. “She’s the first actual friend I made on this planet – or even really since I joined the Navy. She’s the only reason I could forgive Abdi for hurting me – even though it was on Popo’s orders.”

“It’s amazing ad powerful that you were able to forgive Abdi, even after he was one of those who hurt you,” Sabrina told her. “Being able to forgive him is a very good step on the path to recovery!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, I’m going to take a day off from here and instead publish a “Life and Times” one-shot with more of a Valentine’s Day feel to it… even though it’s still November in-universe. “Group Therapy” will continue on Monday.


	7. Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has dinner together at the Manor

Bri stood in the hallway in front of the flat’s linen closet door, waiting for Anne to drop off her book bag in her bedroom following a study session at the cafe down the street. They had gone over to the Manor the day before – each of them had had sessions with Emilie – but today wasn’t about counselling or therapy or any of that. Amelie had invited all of them to the Manor for dinner tonight, including the ones not staying there. This wasn’t the first time she would be having dinner at the Manor; she and Anne had had dinner with Amelie and Felix at least once a week since Anne became a member of the team. But for tonight, Bri was actually looking forward to seeing the rest of their group at dinner. Unfortunately, this meant that Felix would be going out on patrol on his own later, but he had been oddly accommodating when she’d sent him a message to that effect this morning.

It probably didn’t hurt that she’d explained where they were going to be.

Anne’s bedroom door opened and she stepped out. “Ready to go, girl?”

“Waiting on you!” Bri opened the closet door and placed her thumb on the print reader to activate the portal.

“You are really getting a lot of use out of this new ring, aren’t you?” Anne observed, raising an eyebrow at her with a mirthful smirk.

Bri shrugged. They had installed it only a couple days after defeating the Ripper, once Anne was an official part of the team and she didn’t need to hide her hero activities from her flatmate. “It definitely beats having to actually walk to my workshop,” she noted. That it would also save her from ever having to walk through the alley where she had been attacked again – and especially not in the middle of the night after a long patrol – went without saying.

Anne snorted. “You know that’s not what I mean,” she observed wryly, wagging her eyebrows. “It is nice to have such a convenient way of visiting your fella now, hmm?”

Bri rolled her eyes. “I don’t use it to visit Felix _that_ often…”

“Uh-huh,” Anne replied dubiously. “And what about all those nights I’ve come out to find the closet door open?”

Bri felt heat rise in her cheeks. “You make it sound like it happens _every_ night,” Bri retorted. “It’s really only once or twice a week. Just when I’m having trouble sleeping. I don’t want to wake you up _every_ time that happens. So sometimes I go to visit him, and we sit up late into the night, just talking.”

Anne hummed, nodding slowly. “You never have to feel bad about waking me up,” she assured Bri, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a one-armed hug. “I’m here for you any time you need.”

Bri returned the hug with a smile. “Thanks.” She smirked. “I’ll try not to make you regret that!” The portal opened up, and the two girls stepped through to find Amelie waiting for them in the Manor’s Hero Sitting Room.

“Good evening, dears!” Amelie greeted them, pulling Bri into a quick hug before doing the same with Anne. “The others only just arrived and went down to the dining room.” She opened the door to usher them out. “Hussain from the Somali Temple is cooking for us this evening, and he was just setting out the salad when I left.”

“Thanks for inviting us!” Anne told Amelie with a smile. “I love your house!”

“It’s my pleasure!” Amelie led them down the hallway past a couple of bedrooms toward the main hall. “It’s so large and spacious for just two people – one when Felix is at school – that the opportunity to put it to use this week has been wonderful. And I’ve been meaning to invite you for tea sometime to get to know you – just the two of us,” she continued. “But it seems like whenever I’m free, you have work, and vice versa!”

“I would like that,” Anne agreed as they followed Amelie through the Manor. “I have so many questions! How did you and Emilie end up with the Heroes of Paris? Or how did the Heroes of _Paris_ end up in London?”

Amelie chuckled. “I actually didn’t know any of the history until Emilie explained it,” she replied. “One of our ancestors was a miraculous guardian and rescued two miraculous when the temple in Tibet was destroyed – the Butterfly and Peacock. She brought them back to Europe with her, and our family has been guarding them ever since.”

Anne’s eyes widened. “No way! So the miraculous have been involved in English history? But where?”

“Oh, all over the place,” answered Amelie, smiling proudly. “But during World War II my grandfather actually fought alongside the French Resistance!”

“I’ve heard stories about supernatural occurrences associated with the War,” Anne observed, cocking her head. “I wonder if it was related to the miraculous, then.”

Bri rolled her eyes. “You’re just drawn to the supernatural,” she commented, a teasing lilt to her voice.

“It’s interesting!” Anne defended, grinning eagerly. She turned back to Amelie. “So what about the Heroes of the UK?” she asked. “How do we fit into all of this?”

Amelie shrugged and directed them into the dining room, where the others were already waiting. “However you think you should. Our focus is on anything happening in London or England, but if we were to run into trouble, the Heroes of Paris would come and help us out. And if they were to have trouble, we could help them. But from what Emilie has said, the intent is for each group of heroes to handle their own problems when they can.”

Bri took an open seat next to Chloe. “So we don’t have to worry about getting dragged off to China or something?”

“It can happen…” Chloe began, smirking. “But not normally.”

Bri looked down at the dish in the centre of the table, filled with a mixture of beans and rice with some meat on it. “What are we having? It looks good.”

“Surbiyaan hilib adhi,” answered Aisha, helping herself and passing the dish. “It’s amazing! I hardly ever had it before moving into the temple, but we’ll have it almost every week there.”

Bri selected a piece of a flatbread and took a nibble. “I could get used to this,” she decided.

“One of these days, you have to come down and visit Somalia!” Aisha replied excitedly. “You all need to come! The waterfall outside is so cool, and the forest is so spectacular to walk through.”

“Forest you say?” observed Anne. “That could be fun to see some different plant life.” She smirked at Bri. “I _told_ you London was nothing special for greenery!”

Bri scoffed. “Considering how much time I spend in a metal suit with a built-in filtration system, you can forgive me for having a skewed perception of the outdoors!”

“Sometimes I just take a book outside and read on top of the mountain,” Aisha continued, sighing dreamily.

“What kinds of books?” Anne asked curiously.

“Our library has a few fantasy books, but most of them are histories – though a couple I’ve read were written by guardians, so the history is really fantastical! One by a previous Elephant even gives a history of Atlantis.”

“There’s a Founders’ Day celebration in New Atlantis where apparently the guardians recite the history of the exodus from Atlantis,” Hoda interjected. She pulled a lightly-cooked lamb shank off a platter on the sideboard next to her and tore of a strip with her teeth.

Anne pursed her lips in thought. “When is that? It sounds fascinating!”

Hoda frowned. “I think it’s sometime in April. I’m sure they’ll welcome visitors.”

“If it works…” Anne nodded. “I wonder if anyone has written the whole history down.”

“Do I detect a project?” asked Amelie, an amused curl to her lips.

Anne hummed contemplatively. “Perhaps… But regardless, I would love to learn some more of the history of the miraculous.” She glanced back at Aisha. “Could I borrow some of your library’s books?”

Aisha grinned. “Absolutely!”

“You might never see them again,” Bri warned, arching an eyebrow at Anne. “She doesn’t have a _desk_ in her bedroom; she puts her computer on a stack of books!”

“I’m surrounded by nerds,” Chloe muttered to Sabrina, who giggled.

“We both know you only _pretend_ to be such a ditz,” Sabrina whispered back, elbowing her in the ribs.

Chloe shrugged. “I can’t help that people underestimate me.”

Anne finished her mouthful of lamb and turned to Hoda, who had finished off her lamb shank and was considering a spoonful of rice and beans. “So how long have your people been travelling in space? Can you go faster than light?”

Hoda looked up, humming in surprise. “The Shunjar? I guess we’ve… always been spacefaring,” she replied. “Or at least since long before I was born. The earliest of our ships couldn’t make it between planets in less than a year, even within our own system. But as our engines have improved, we’ve cut those trips down to an hour or less, though we still haven’t figured out FTL travel yet. So trips beyond our own system can still be pretty long.”

“How did it develop? I would love to learn more about your civilization!”

Hoda’s eyes widened, her mouth turning up into a smile. “I would be happy to answer your questions!”

Bri helped herself to another scoop of the seasoned rice as Anne and Aisha both began peppering Hoda with questions. Across from her, Amelie and Emilie were in the middle of a quiet discussion, Nooroo and Duusu sharing a bowl of fruit salad between them. However, on catching Bri’s eye, Amelie turned to her with a smile. “And how have classes been this week, dear?”

Bri smiled back. “Much better,” she admitted. “I’ve been able to focus in Design so much better now than last week.”

“You seem more relaxed than you were on Friday,” Emilie observed gently. “I’m glad to see it!”

“This has… helped,” Bri agreed, nodding. “Quitting the auto shop hasn’t hurt, either – no more early mornings.”

“Are you sleeping better?” Amelie asked delicately.

Bri flushed. She hadn’t _wanted_ to wake Amelie the week before, but Anne had pulled an all-nighter the night before, and she hadn’t wanted to bother Felix _again_ when they had only just gotten back from patrol. “A little. I haven’t had a nightmare in a few nights.”

Amelie raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad you have people to talk to when that happens. You never have to feel embarrassed about waking me up.”

“I know. I just…”

“You don’t want to be a burden?” Emilie suggested with a sad smile.

Bri nodded, her shoulders slumping. Ever since the Ripper, she had intruded so much on everyone else’s lives – Felix, Anne, Amelie… all of them had had to put their own activities on hold for her.

Amelie reached across the table and took Bri’s hand. “You will _never_ be a burden, dear. You’re family.”

Bri felt tears pool in the corners of her eyes and sniffled. “Thanks. Between you and Anne and Felix it’s… overwhelming to have a family here.” She smiled.

Amelie sighed sadly. “If you ever want to talk about your parents, I’m always available.”

“I know – so far Felix is the only one I’ve really told,” Bri admitted quietly.

“I’m glad you have each other,” Amelie told her. “I feel so much better now than when he first started out.”

“Yeah…”

“You care about him a lot,” Emilie observed gently.

“Absolutely,” agreed Bri, nodding. “He’s…” She paused to think.

Amelie furrowed her brows. “Your emotions toward him are rather jumbled. Are you…?”

Bri cocked her head in confusion. “What…” Wait. Her eyes widened and she flushed in embarrassment. “No – or not right now, I mean.” She swallowed hard. “I guess… with everything that happened… now doesn’t feel like the right time, you know? I don’t know if it would be fair to him when I’m still so… well… messed up. And he’s been so kind, helping me to heal whenever I needed him.”

“That’s a very mature decision,” Emilie praised her. “I’m glad you’re not expecting a romantic relationship to solve all your emotional needs.”

Amelie nodded. “I understand that; I won’t ask you about it again unless you bring it up,” she informed Bri. “And I’m here for you, regardless of anything to do with Felix.” She squeezed Bri’s hand. “I apologize for even saying anything. I suppose it’s rather awkward to have me analyzing your emotions toward my son.”

Emilie stifled a laugh. “You should have seen Marinette the first time we talked about that! I thought she was about to combust!” She sighed fondly. “It was awkward at the time, of course, but we can laugh about it now.”

Bri furrowed her brows. “‘Marinette’… Felix mentioned her I think… Your son’s fiancée knows about your miraculous?”

Emilie exchanged a look with Amelie and chuckled. “You could say that. One of these days I hope you’ll have a chance to meet them.”

Bri shrugged noncommittally. “Sure. I haven’t really been back to Paris since I arrived here.”

Emilie smiled. “Perhaps you can come by over Christmas!”


	8. Anne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Therapy session with Anne

As she looked at the young woman across from her, Emilie furrowed her brows in concentration. On the surface, she was very much the anomaly – outwardly, her emotions this whole time had been largely positive. She was the one who encouraged the others, who went out of her way to support her best friend, who always had a smile on her face. Even now, she appeared to be completely at ease. If Emilie didn’t know any better, she would think Anne didn’t need to be here.

So it was a good thing she _did_ know better.

“How have you enjoyed this past week?” Emilie asked her, smiling.

“It’s been absolutely unreal!” replied Anne, grinning. “I’m glad I’ve gotten to meet everyone here – especially Hoda. I didn’t even know aliens _existed_ before now, but now I can say I’ve even met one! Well,” she amended, giggling sheepishly, “I can’t exactly _tell_ anyone… after all, who would believe me?”

“This has been something of an introduction to a much larger world, hasn’t it?” observed Emilie, raising an eyebrow at Duusu, who was watching them from his perch on the armoire. The Kwami giggled. “I suppose this isn’t quite what you were expecting to get out of your first year at university.”

“Not exactly,” Anne agreed, shaking her head. “Before all of this I knew about the Heroes of Paris – who didn’t – but that was it. Then Iron Maiden and the Hound showed up in London – only for me to find out they were my flatmate and her ‘friend.’ And then all of a sudden _I_ was the one with superpowers.”

“I imagine that was quite a shock, ‘ _Bandruí_ ’,” Emilie noted.

“You said it right!” Anne giggled, but quickly sobered. “I didn’t even know what was happening at first; just all of these new sensations, all around me. It was like my senses were being overloaded with information I didn’t know how to process. I’m not sure when I realized it was the plants that I was hearing, or that I was actually _affecting_ them. That was _another_ shock.”

Emilie hummed. “I imagine that whole experience was _full_ of them. So tell me about what happened with the Ripper,” she continued, concentrating on Anne’s buried emotions.

Anne shrugged, her other emotions overtaken by surprise at the subject change. “Not much to tell,” she replied. “I was leaving the library after finishing up some more research for my term paper. I called Bri to check on how she was doing and have someone to talk to on the way home. I would have called my oul dear, but she was at work. Plus, I figured Bri could use the distraction. She’d been a little better the previous couple days, but still having a tough time of it since Friday night.”

“It’s special how close the two of you are,” Emilie observed, smiling warmly. “Just speaking for myself, _I_ ’m far closer with my university roommate’s _daughter_ than I am with her!” She sighed ruefully: even twenty years later, it still shocked her that she and Audrey had managed to room together for three years without coming to blows. “But you and Bri really care a lot about each other, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Anne agreed, nodding in surprise.

“Had you met before moving in together?”

Anne shook her head. “The first time we ever met was the foreign student move-in day. We were both a little out of our comfort zone when we arrived, both at a new school in a new country, with a few months to acclimate before classes would start, so we were getting to know the city and the campus together. And with the Ripper running loose…” A trace of anger cut through her happy façade at that. “Neither of us particularly wanted to be out on our own, at least not at first.” She frowned. “So of course practically the first time either of us _was_ out alone, look what happened to Bri.”

Emilie raised an eyebrow at that. “Is Bri the reason you don’t think you should talk about what the Ripper tried to do to you?” she asked gently.

Anne cocked her head in confusion, anxiety starting to build under the surface. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve noticed that you try to gloss over your attack whenever it comes up,” Emilie explained. “Are you worried that it will hurt Bri for you to talk about your experience?”

Anne frowned, humming in contemplation. “I mean, compared to what happened to her, what do I really have to complain about?” she asked rhetorically. “The Ripper grabbed me off the street, dragged me back into the library and down a hidden staircase, tied me up, and left me alone in the dark. I was hungry and I couldn’t see, but considering the alternative I think I should be grateful he didn’t stick around. Then when he came back, it was only to put me in the middle of that giant pile of wood. He didn’t touch me any more than he had to, and he never even tried to hurt me – aside from the whole _burning_ thing.” She shrugged. “Whereas he tried to gut my sister and rape her, and now she can’t stand to walk down the alley to her workshop alone. When I look at what happened to her and what happened to me, there’s just no comparison. Why should _I_ bring it up just to remind her that _she_ almost died?”

“You almost died, too,” Emilie pointed out delicately. “That would scar anyone.”

Anne’s fear spiked, but she almost immediately suppressed it. “But I _didn’t_ ,” she replied, a slight tightness around her mouth betraying the emotions lying just beneath the surface. “It wasn’t until the very end, when the… when the fire started. I only felt any danger then, but at the same time, that was also when Bri and Felix found me.” She frowned. “So what kind of friend would I be if I tried to put all the focus on myself when Bri is still struggling so much with what happened to her?”

“I suppose you would be human,” Emilie noted, arching one eyebrow in a challenge. “You were hurt by this monster, just as much as she was, and it’s okay for you to talk about it.”

“It wasn’t _so_ bad,” Anne insisted with a laugh that couldn’t quite hide her unease. “I mean, I came out of it with superpowers, so I suppose everything turned out pretty well for me.”

“It that another reason why you feel so guilty?” asked Emilie. “Because you received superpowers when your friend only received PTSD?”

“It sure sounds like one of us came out of the experience a whole lot better than the other,” Anne agreed, frowning.

“I suppose so,” Emilie acknowledged. She frowned: there was _something_ there… “But at the same time, would I be off base to think that any time you use your powers it’s also a reminder of the Ripper and what happened to you?”

Anne clenched her jaw and frowned, her calm façade crumbling. She sniffed. “How can something so deadly have resulted from such a kip?”

Emilie gave her a sympathetic smile and held out the tissue box to her. “Good and bad are sometimes connected like that,” she answered, indicating her peacock-fan brooch. “My miraculous was given to me by my mother, and every time I look at it I feel the weight of the legacy which she bequeathed to me, the long line of Guardians who came before me and helped people with the Peacock and Butterfly. My miraculous connects me to her, even though she is gone. But she and my father weren’t the last ones to use the two miraculous they gave me. They fell into the wrong hands – and on my watch. I can’t help but think about what happened with them while I was… well… _asleep_ … and how in two _years_ the man I loved so thoroughly tarnished a legacy that had been built over nearly two _centuries_. I can’t separate those things or pretend that what Gabriel did doesn’t matter – or that it was somehow good. Good may have come _from_ his evil act, but that does not make the act itself any less evil.”

“How do _you_ deal with it?”

Emilie twisted her lips up in thought. “I do what I can for those who suffered because of Gabriel,” she replied slowly. “I remember that his actions are not a reflection of mine. And ultimately the best thing I can do is continue to live my life instead of allowing Gabriel’s misdeeds to define me.” She smiled and glanced over to where Duusu was resting on the dresser. “Having my friend for company helps!”

Anne hummed, her emotions still twisted up.

Emilie sighed. “Your powers are beautiful, dear! But they came from such a horrible experience. If you weren’t thinking about it even a _little_ , I would honestly be surprised. So I imagine that’s yet _another_ reason why you feel like you can’t talk to Bri about this?”

Anne nodded weakly. “Why should she have to hear about _my_ problems?”

“You mean because she has problems of her own?”

Anne nodded again, her shoulders slumping.

“You don’t have to hide away from what happened to you,” Emilie told her. “It’s okay for you to be happy to have these abilities without being happy about the way you received them. And it’s okay for you to talk about those feelings.”

Anne sighed. “I know…” Her emotions were still troubled, dominated by anxiety.

Emilie hummed contemplatively. “My observation is that you and Bri talk about almost everything. Is that correct?”

“Well… yeah,” Anne confirmed. “I mean, she didn’t tell me that she was Iron Maiden until after she and Felix saved me from the Ripper, but other than that, yes.”

“So would you say that this is something that you have in common?”

Anne nodded slowly. “Much as I think _both_ of us wish otherwise…” she grumbled.

“One goal of this therapy retreat is for you to learn how to process your trauma in healthy ways,” Emilie explained. “And I think it might actually help you _both_ if you can talk openly and honestly with each other about your experiences with the Ripper. You might find that Bri’s experience helps you understand your own. And you might find that your experience helps Bri to not feel alone when she is going through a difficult time. And that she is more comfortable opening up to you if you allow yourself to be open with her.”

Anne looked down at the floor. “But what if that messes up the relationship we have now? I don’t want to lose my best friend.”

Emilie raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think your sister, the one who moved heaven and earth to rescue you from a rapist, would really be put off by knowing the event was traumatic?”

“When you put it like that…” Anne nodded in understanding.

Emilie smiled. “I think your relationship can survive this. And I think it can also help you both to heal!”


	9. Small Group 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small group with Chloe, Anne, and Hoda

Emilie looked around the room at the three girls. When she had entered, Anne had been in the middle of plying Hoda with questions about the plants and animals on her home planet – apparently most of Shunjas had a very temperate climate. Chloe had rolled her eyes and announced that if there was sand, she had no interest in it.

“There is a desert near the equator,” Hoda explained, “but most of the planet is more like what you would call a jungle. The desert gets really hot, though. It’s…” She fell silent, averting her eyes from the others.

Emilie smiled sympathetically. “It’s hard to talk about home, isn’t it?”

Hoda bobbed her head. “I have some friends on this planet, of course. But I miss home.”

Anne nodded. “I understand a little where you’re coming from. I’m eight hours from home, but I’m not even on the same island, so it might as well be eight months for as much as I ever go back there. Even with the friends I’ve made, it’s still not the same. I miss my little brothers. I miss my friends. I miss the old haunts.”

Hoda scoffed, something ominous creeping into her emotions. “Eight hours? That’s nothing. From here it would take eighteen of your _years_ to get to Shunjas! Though with time dilation it wouldn’t feel so long.”

“Seriously?” Anne’s eyes widened in shock, her emotions fluctuating between sympathy, embarrassment, and annoyance. “That’s a bit of a balls! So joining your Navy was essentially saying so long to everyone you knew, then?”

Hoda shrugged. “In a way. That’s why Father decided to sign on again: That way he wouldn’t be an old man when I returned. Mom died a couple years before I enlisted, so it was an easy choice for him.”

“That’s pretty minus craic.”

Chloe arched an eyebrow at Anne. “Are you even speaking English?”

Anne smirked. “Tá.”

Chloe gave her a deadpan look. “Watch it, _Banned-Rye_.”

“‘Bandruí.’”

Emilie chuckled on sensing the amusement from the three girls. “It is nice to see that you three can laugh about things, even after everything that happened to you,” she told them. “Humor is a useful tool for dealing with a trauma. At the same time, it can also turn into a mask. Hoda, I noticed that when Anne mentioned not seeing her family in a while it actually upset you. Could you share why?”

Hoda frowned. “Because it really isn’t the same thing,” she began. “I get what she was saying, but not seeing your family for a couple months isn’t the same as being on a completely different planet.”

Anne nodded. “I understand that,” she agreed, her emotions shifting to embarrassment. “I’m sorry if it came across that way. I just… I wanted you to know you’re not the only one feeling that – even if I _can’t_ really know your situation. Although half the time England might as well _be_ a different planet,” she muttered.

Emilie turned back to Hoda. “Can you understand what Anne means?”

Hoda nodded slowly. “I understand. And I do appreciate you people trying to make me feel more… welcomed here. It’s just… I guess… even after a month sometimes I still have trouble separating the humans I’ve met recently from the ones I met when I first arrived.”

“I imagine that was a terrible experience,” Emilie noted.

Hoda’s shoulders slumped, and Chloe shuddered. “ _That_ ’s an understatement! I met that monster once, and that was more than enough – though he wasn’t exactly _human_ , so that doesn’t really count.”

“What was he?” asked Anne cocking her head curiously.

“You mean the Popobawa?” Chloe replied, raising an eyebrow. “Shape-shifter, bat wings, razor-sharp teeth…”

Emilie nodded. “In other words, a _figurative_ monster who turned out to be a _literal_ monster.” She looked at Hoda. “Are all humans like Popo and his minions?”

Hoda shook her head. “No,” she answered promptly. “I have met some good humans – or even some who weren’t as bad as I thought at first.”

“Can you give some examples?”

“Abdi,” Hoda replied immediately. “I thought he was just another human monster like–like Popo or Goota-Lolaa, but he really wasn’t. And in the end he helped me escape. Dane and Boaz – my Australian friends – don’t treat me like I’m different just because I’m Shunjar.” She looked around the room. “And all of you have made me feel welcome here, too,” she added.

Emilie focused her attention back on the other two and pursed her lips in thought. “And yet you still wonder how long that will last? Or how long until the other shoe drops?”

Hoda frowned. “Shunjar don’t need _shoes_ normally, so maybe not in those same terms, but… I guess? The first human being we ever met took us in and helped Father heal, but then he tied me up and held me like an animal. And I _know_ the rest of you aren’t like that, but…”

Chloe stared at Emilie, her confidence cracking for a moment. Emilie could feel the long-buried frustration welling up inside of her.

“Chloe, honey,” she asked her gently, “would you be willing to share?”

Chloe sighed. “My… _mother_ … isn’t the most caring of people,” she confessed. “She never told me she loved me; she always told me I was a disappointment. So when I met someone who actually _would_ show me affection, it took years before I could actually believe her. I always assumed that she was just using me to get something – trying to use me to get to my parents – or that she would turn on me when I didn’t live up to her standards, or that she would just leave me to do her own thing.” Emilie’s heart clenched as that same guilt threatened to boil over. Chloe sniffled. “But in the end I did finally believe her.” She looked up at Emilie and smiled. “And she’s _never_ disappointed me.”

Emilie managed to keep her composure for just a moment longer before she reached for a tissue, dabbing at her eyes. “Thank you for sharing, sweetheart,” she told her. She coughed awkwardly, trying to regain her focus. “How have your experiences since your escape compared to your experiences when you first arrived on earth?” she asked Hoda.

“There’s no comparison,” she responded. “I’m welcomed. I’m not treated differently. I actually have friends. I… think I even belong.”

“Belonging is not something to take lightly,” Emilie observed, nodding. She frowned, sensing something that reminded her of nervousness and fear creeping into Hoda’s emotions. “But am I right in thinking that you are still afraid that it’s all going to fall apart on you?”

Hoda nodded. “I don’t _want_ it to – I want things to continue the way they are now. But what if it changes? What if they turn out to be like Popo, just using me?”

Chloe scoffed. “Everyone has an angle. That’s the first lesson I ever learned from my mother. Every month it seems like another of Daddy’s politician ‘friends’ tries to get _him_ to do something for _them_ by doing something for _me_.” Emilie held her breath. Chloe sighed. “But that doesn’t mean _everyone_ is trying to use you. Sometimes the ‘angle’ is that they just want to be your friend; any benefits that come from friendship are just a bonus.” She chuckled humorlessly. “That was one of the hardest lessons for me to learn. There really is such a thing as friendship, and not everyone is looking to get something out of it.”

“Would you care to elaborate?” Emilie asked.

Chloe swallowed heavily, guilt and anxiety warring in her emotions. “Not really? But when Sabrina and I first met, our friendship was all about that. I expected her to do whatever I asked without questioning – that’s really what _both_ of us expected out of the other, and it worked at the time. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I even questioned it and tried to change. Now I can’t imagine going back to that. And the relationship we have now is so much better than anything I thought we had then.”

Anne hummed. “Speaking for myself, I’ve had a few ‘friends’ who tried to use me in the past,” she commented. “When things are going well, everyone wants to be your friend. But I’ve also had friends who were genuinely interested in being friends. Those are the ones who stay with you when nothing is going right.” She smiled fondly.

“The thing is, I _thought_ I knew the difference,” Hoda confessed, flexing her talons. “But now I’m not so sure.”

Emilie furrowed her brows in contemplation. “Perhaps a little role playing would be helpful,” she decided. She glanced at Chloe, her lips quirking up in amusement. “Would you say that you have a good understanding of what it looks like when someone is trying to use you?”

Chloe scoffed. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

“Could you act that part out?”

Chloe shrugged.

“Excellent. Then I suppose that leaves Anne to play someone who wants to be a friend.”

Closing her eyes, Chloe took a slow breath before standing up, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder, and fixing Hoda with a too-wide smile. “Oh! Hi! I’m Chloe and it’s so nice to meet you finally! I just happened to be in the area and wanted to stop in and introduce myself! Here; would you like this new designer purse?”

Hoda leaned back, staring at her in confusion.

Chloe put her arm around Hoda’s shoulders, leaned in, and added, “Oh, and by the way, be sure to tell your dear father that I stopped by, will you? It’s so terrible that they make him work _such_ long hours on that wretched zoning committee, don’t you think?”

Hoda blinked at her. Chloe returned to her seat, folding her arms, trying to suppress her embarrassment.

Emilie nodded slowly. “That was… a personal experience?”

Chloe nodded. “Last week. She wanted a variance to open a shop on the ground floor of an apartment building – didn’t even _pretend_ to want anything more than that.” She rolled her eyes. “Utterly ridiculous.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Emilie told her, smiling encouragingly. “Anne?”

Anne furrowed her brows and pursed her lips in thought for a minute. Finally she nodded in realization, stood up, and smiled warmly at Hoda. Hoda eyed her suspiciously. Anne held out her hand to her and said, “Hi, my name is Anne! I hope we’ll be able to be friends!”

Hoda shook her hand nervously. “Um… hi?”

“But I have a _really_ important question for you,” Anne continued. She paused for a beat and asked, “Guinness or Newcastle?”

Hoda cocked her head in confusion. “Excuse me?”

Chloe laughed, rolling her eyes. “Wait, are you telling me that your most important question for Bri when you first met was about _beer preferences_?”

Anne giggled. “Maybe.”

Chloe made a face.

Anne rolled her eyes. “You French and your wines…”

Emilie cleared her throat. “Thank you, girls,” she told them as Anne and Hoda returned to their seats. She gave Hoda an evaluating look. “Chloe’s was a little exaggerated–” Chloe grinned unrepentantly “–but could you tell the difference?”

Hoda frowned. “Chloe’s felt like there were a lot of expectations,” she answered slowly. “But Anne didn’t act like she wanted anything. It just… _felt_ different.”

“Good!”

“It’s just… I don’t get that feeling of expectations from any of my human friends right _now_ , but what if that changes?”

Emilie hummed in contemplation. “After what happened when you first arrived on our planet, it may take some time for us to regain your trust,” she admitted. “But I hope it will happen.”

Hoda sighed. “I do, too. And I _do_ trust you – all of you that I’ve met this week. In fact, knowing that you want to help me and aren’t trying to use me for something has helped.”


	10. Chloe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe has counseling with her adoptive aunt/"mother"

“This was a brilliant idea! I’m so glad you put this whole thing together,” Emilie said as soon as the door was closed. She smiled at Chloe and gave her a quick hug, running her fingers through Chloe’s hair and pressing her lips to Chloe’s forehead. “I’m proud of you, sweetheart.”

Chloe wrapped her arms around Emilie tighter before letting out a breath and releasing her. “Thanks, _Tante_ ,” she whispered, her emotions overflowing with pride and gratitude. “I–I’m glad it all worked out so well for the others.”

“And I’m glad you decided to come, also,” Emilie answered. “You may have organized this with the other four in mind, but I can tell that it’s helped you, too – just as much as it helped them.”

“Yeah…” she responded slowly, her lips turning down in a frown. “Last month was hard,” she admitted, dropping into her seat with a sigh. “I thought that I was putting all of this behind me. I thought that I was going to be able to push past everything Lynchpin did. Sure, I still don’t have my miraculous back, but I’m… useful. I’m a hero – even without a miraculous. I’ve been doing good and helping Mar and Adrien. Sent-Bee can protect people, just as much as Queen Bee could. Whatever happens with my miraculous, that hasn’t changed the fact that I’m a hero.”

“I can tell that acknowledging that the miraculous isn’t what made you a hero was a major realization for you!” Emilie praised her, smiling. “But it can’t have been an easy path to get there.”

“Not exactly,” Chloe agreed, shaking her head. “It… took a while. But it helped that Marinette and Adrien still needed me. That I had friends. I was–I was good. I was _doing_ good things, helping people.”

“And that’s when you came face to face with what _could_ have happened to you?” Emilie asked gently. Chloe’s confidence crumbled, giving way to guilt and fear.

Chloe nodded. “I never would have believed that a monster like that could exist – and regardless of what he _was_ , he was absolutely a monster. Or for that matter that someone could inflict such horrors on an innocent girl. Don’t get me wrong; I knew it was _possible_ …”

“… but it’s something else entirely when you actually witness the consequences of those actions with your own two eyes?” finished Emilie sympathetically.

Chloe nodded. “It’s different seeing it for myself.” She let out a breath. “I only spent a _week_ with my monster last spring. She spent a _year_ with her monster. And for as much as Lynchpin threatened to have his people… well… _rape me_ –” she shuddered “–it never actually happened. But for that to happen to a _twelve_ -year-old – and daily – for a year… After how much _I_ struggled last spring… I couldn’t imagine what she must have been going through.”

“You felt compassion for Aisha,” observed Emilie, nodding.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Chloe warned her, a trace of amusement in her voice and her emotions. “My reputation would be ruined!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Emilie replied, chuckling. “Although for as much as you pretend to be so arrogant and haughty, I don’t think you’re really fooling anyone anymore – at least not those of us who know you best. Your kind side has been shining through more and more since I’ve been back.”

Chloe allowed herself a small smile. “Are you surprised?”

Emilie raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “Of course not,” she assured her. “I’ve always known how kind and compassionate you could be – when you chose to be. Remember, I’ve been able to sense your emotions since the day we met. I even saw your compassionate side a few times when you were younger. The last few months have just been seeing more of what you were on the inside come out. That’s why I thought you could help both Felix _and_ Iron Maiden after what happened to her.”

Chloe scoffed. “Felix was easy; I’ve known how to handle him and Adrien since we were seven!”

“I _thought_ you were the one who convinced them to go banister sliding!” Emilie laughed, shaking her head ruefully.

Chloe snorted. “In my defense, I didn’t expect Gabriel to flip out quite so spectacularly!” She sobered. “I wasn’t worried about Felix. But I _was_ worried about Bri. I was afraid if I went ‘full Chloe,’ I would push her a little too much,” she admitted nervously. “She’d been through a horrible experience, and it had been less than a week. A week after _my_ trauma, I’d spiraled so badly that the others had to step in and make me stop trying to put myself in danger! At that point I was just _angry_. I wanted revenge, and I didn’t care how it happened. If I’d actually met Lynchpin, I probably would have ripped off his goddamn head. But with Bri that wasn’t the case at all from what Amelie had said. Bri didn’t get angry until I showed up; she was just sad and scared. That was what scared me the most: what if I’d said the wrong thing and she had just shut down completely?”

Emilie nodded. “It is frightening to be in that position – trying to help someone in a crisis. And you didn’t _have_ to go, but you did.”

“Of course I did,” Chloe responded, surprised. “You asked; I couldn’t disappoint you.”

Emilie pushed her own emotions down but sighed affectionately. “Chloe, honey,” she told her, “that statement is true, _period_. You can’t _possibly_ disappoint me, _whatever_ you do.”

Chloe sniffled, blinking. “You…” She trailed off and chuckled. “I suppose I knew that…”

 _Damn Audrey._ “But no matter how much you know it, you still need to be reminded of it?” Chloe nodded. “I’m proud of you for wanting to help,” Emilie reiterated firmly. “You don’t have to have all the right words or say things perfectly to help. In this case, you did it just by being yourself and pushing a little.”

“Yeah, well… I had some help.” Chloe smiled at Emilie. “I’m glad she came here instead of just trying to do it on her own.”

Emilie smiled and leaned forward, patting Chloe’s knee. “You did good, sweetie.”

A stab of anxiety shot through Chloe, her eyes widening fractionally.

Emilie’s heart sank. “I’m so sorry, dear,” she apologized.

Chloe shook her head, clenching her eyes shut and breathing slowly through her nose. “No… it’s not your fault; I know it’s all on Lynchpin.” She sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping. “But it’s still a reminder of what he stole from me.”

Emilie nodded regretfully. “I can still feel traces of your anger from the spring,” she told her. “I imagine that really did take away your sense of self: before then you thought yourself to be invincible; afterward you felt vulnerable. Before then you were a hero; afterward you had to rediscover what that meant.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Chloe admitted, clenching and unclenching her hands in her lap, frowning.

“I wish I could have been here to help you process it.”

Chloe shrugged. “I didn’t know it was even an option, so I didn’t exactly miss it. I had Sabrina and Adrien and Marinette; they were all really supportive. And I had the other Heroes. But I’m glad you’re here to help the others, though.”

“I’m here to help you through it now, too,” Emilie reminded her. “Just because you can help others, doesn’t mean you can’t also accept some help yourself.”

“I suppose.” Chloe fell silent, her emotions fluctuating wildly as her anger, guilt, and shame made themselves known. “I’m just so angry,” she admitted. “I don’t think it’s ever really gone away.”

Emilie shook her head sadly. “It hasn’t,” she informed her. “It’s been there under the surface all along – even when your other emotions were so much stronger than it. Even when Sabrina probably couldn’t sense it.”

Chloe pursed her lips.

“Being angry after everything that happened to you isn’t wrong,” Emilie assured her. “You can be angry at Lynchpin for abducting you .You can be angry at Killer Bee for misusing your miraculous. You can even be angry at yourself because your mistake allowed it all to happen.”

Chloe nodded slowly, her anger giving way to sadness. Emilie had to resist the urge to get up and give her pseudo-daughter a hug. Right now she was supposed to be Chloe’s counselor, _not_ her adopted aunt/mother. Instead she contented herself with passing Chloe a box of tissues.

“You don’t have to be all put together all the time, Chloe,” Emilie told her quietly. “Vulnerability isn’t a weakness.”

Chloe sighed and blew her nose. “I know. It’s just…”

“This isn’t who you thought you were?”

Chloe shook her head and sniffled, clenching her eyes shut. “It sure as hell isn’t who _Mother_ wanted me to be…”

Emilie pursed her lips and forced herself to maintain her calm. “She does put a lot on you, doesn’t she?”

Chloe nodded, staring at the floor. “Most of the time she treats me like I don’t even exist, and whenever she _does_ acknowledge me, it’s only to criticize. ‘Why can’t I stand up for myself?’ ‘Why can’t I have _her_ design sense?’ ‘Why do I have to bother her when she’s busy?’” She scoffed. “Between the two, I’m not sure which is worse.”

Emilie hummed. “With all of that I suppose it’s no surprise your ‘default’ would be to act more like her. If you _are_ her, then how can she be upset with you?” She let out a breath, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

Chloe frowned. “A lot of good that did,” she muttered.

Emilie chuckled. “You were never going to be another Audrey Bourgeois,” she noted wryly. “There is already _one_ of those, and that’s _more_ than enough.” Chloe stifled a snort. “You aren’t Audrey; you are Chloe Bourgeois, Hero of Paris.”

“But that’s not who I was trying to be for so long.”

“Maybe you have grown into someone else,” Emilie suggested. “Or maybe you always _were_ this kind, sweet girl, and it took this experience to give you the confidence and the incentive to allow her to shine through.”

Chloe scoffed. “Let me guess: you’re about to tell me that it’s the latter option, aren’t you?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

Emilie smiled. “I’m also going to tell you that from everything I have learned and witnessed in the last few months, it wasn’t losing your miraculous that drew this part of you out; it was becoming a hero. Your experience from the spring only put all of this into sharper relief.”

Chloe smiled, though Emilie could still feel a hint of doubt from her.

“You are _better_ than your mother ever was or could be.” Emilie sighed affectionately. “That’s not to say I don’t see some of your mother in you still – the best parts of her, I mean.”

Chloe furrowed her brows in confusion.

“Your confidence,” she explained. “Your ability to push people in just the right way to do what needs to be done. Those are qualities I saw in Audrey first.” Chloe’s shame started to return. “Neither of those qualities are bad,” Emilie assured her quickly. “Your mother used them to hurt people and get her own way, of course. But you don’t. You help people. That’s what makes you a hero.”

Chloe scoffed. “I didn’t exactly learn _that_ from Mother…”

Emilie shook her head. “No, you didn’t. That’s _you_.”

“Actually…” Chloe blushed, looking away. “I think I learned that by watching _you_.”

Emilie smiled warmly, wiping a tear from her eye. “Chloe, honey, I know I’ve said it already, but I’ll say it again: I couldn’t be more proud of the wonderful young woman that you have become.”

Tears started trickling down Chloe’s cheeks. “Thanks, _Tante_.”


	11. Group Closing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone comes together again at the end

On Sunday evening, Emilie arrived in the large meeting room before the girls and sat down in her accustomed seat, closing her eyes and breathing slowly through her nose, Duusu resting on her shoulder, his tail feathers caressing her shoulder blade comfortingly. This retreat had been difficult and stressful – she had recognized going in that it would be. Aisha’s anxiety still hadn’t entirely disappeared; Emilie had needed to alleviate some of her grief, shame, fear, and anxiety during each of their individual sessions. And yet, that morning Aisha had been able to manage her emotions through meditation exercises with very little interference from Emilie.

And Aisha wasn’t the only one to have benefited.

Emilie sighed. “What do you think of this week?” she asked Duusu.

“It’s so sad, everything that happened to these poor girls,” the Kwami responded, a tremble in his voice. “Niú Shū and Húlí Yímā had a difficult time, also – I wasn’t active then, but Stompp and Trixx had some stories. But they didn’t experience anything like Aisha.” He fell silent for a moment, his feathers drooping, before he perked up. “But it’s amazing how much you and Miss Sabrina were able to help them! I’m so proud of you both for taking this on! You’re the best Peacock I’ve had in forever!”

Emilie allowed herself a giggle at Duusu’s infectious enthusiasm. “I don’t know about _that_ ,” she objected, smiling in amusement. “But I appreciate the vote of confidence!”

Duusu hummed. “La Resistaonne did a lot of good for the refugees, of course,” he allowed, “but she didn’t have the same talent for this that you have. So it _has_ been a long time since I had a holder quite like you, Miss Emilie!”

Emilie felt heat rise in her cheeks. “Thanks,” she told him, patting his head. “That… thanks.”

Duusu flitted off her shoulder and flew up to nuzzle her cheek. “You’re a great holder,” he whispered. “And you’re an amazing guardian.”

Emilie let out a breath, releasing a little more of her long-buried anxiety into the atmosphere. Maybe this retreat hadn’t just helped the girls. But speaking of the girls… six sets of emotions were approaching the group meeting room. With the few moments remaining before they would arrive, Emilie closed her eyes and ran quickly through one of her meditation cycles, first focusing her breathing and then acknowledging and releasing her own emotions. No sooner had she finished than the door opened.

Even before she opened her eyes, Emilie could sense from the emotions that it was Sabrina and Chloe. The change in the two of them had been remarkable. Sabrina had begun the retreat anxious and nervous, unsure of herself and her ability to help the other five. However, as the week had progressed, she had displayed more and more of the cool, calm confidence that Emilie knew she possessed. And while Emilie still hadn’t taught her everything, Sabrina had proven to be a fast learner. Emilie smiled: the protégée would indeed exceed the master.

For her part, Chloe still felt anxiety and trepidation toward Audrey. She still felt the weight of the expectations laid on her. Her guilt over the loss of her miraculous still lingered on the edges of her consciousness. Lowered though it had been, her anger at Lynchpin and Killer Bee still remained. However, today she was riding on the high of having succeeded in putting this program together and helping the other girls. And perhaps the afterglow of their counseling session from that morning still clung to her: Chloe’s emotions held a lightness that Emilie rarely felt. Even though she had been reluctant to attempt counseling Chloe when they were so close, Emilie couldn’t argue with the results.

“So I bet Max will be happy to see you tonight,” Chloe teased, smirking at Sabrina as they found their seats.

Sabrina raised an eyebrow back at her with a teasing grin. “You _would_ think that!” she replied. She giggled. “Actually, I think he enjoyed having the last two weekends all to himself to work on his new flying car design.

“A flying car,” Chloe deadpanned. “Your boyfriend replaced you with a _flying car_? Do I need to have a… _talk_ with that boy about his priorities?”

Sabrina smiled fondly. “‘Replaced’ is such a strong word,” she retorted. “He had a project to work on and could work better with fewer distractions. When I called last night it sounded like it worked. He almost finished it; he just needs a couple pieces from the others.”

“Well, he’s going to have to wait a little longer,” interjected Bri from the doorway, entering with Anne in tow. Bri’s emotions had morphed over the course of the retreat. This evening she was far more relaxed than she had been nine days ago. And while her trauma hadn’t evaporated overnight, the guilt and shame had diminished, supplanted by calm and relief. She laughed nervously, grimacing. “It’s been a little hard for me to look over his thrust equations while I’ve been here!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sabrina assured her. “He’s also waiting on the fuel consumption and energy output estimates from Mohamed, so you’re fine for a while longer.”

“I’ll pretend you’re both speaking English,” Chloe grumbled, shaking her head.

Anne snorted. “Join the club!”

“How _do_ you put up with it?” asked Chloe, arching an eyebrow.

Anne shrugged. “Half the time I just smile and nod when she starts on that science nonsense!”

Bri rolled her eyes. “And yet, if it weren’t for that so-called ‘science nonsense,’ we would have had to walk here!” she pointed out.

“Love you, sister,” Anne giggled. Bri stuck out her tongue.

Emilie gave a small smile, listening to their banter. While Anne and Bri had mostly been on the same page last week, their emotions had been slightly out of sync at that time. But now, Anne wasn’t suppressing her own residual fear or masking it with a happy façade. She could be happy for her new powers without pretending. Bri wasn’t embarrassed about her own trauma. And the change in their dynamic was electric.

Just then the last two members of their group walked through the door. “You and Abdi should come down for a visit sometime!” Hoda was saying, her eyes alight with excitement. Emilie couldn’t pinpoint when she really started making sense of Hoda’s emotions, but the reduction in her anger and fear – their replacement with happiness and contentment – was a wonderful thing to feel. Hoda’s lips parted in a smile. “I’ll show you around New Atlantis, you can meet the rest of my team… And it’s summer in Australia!”

Aisha grinned enthusiastically. “That would be so much fun! Mohamed said he’s been to Australia a couple times, and it sounds so cool!”

“My father has said he’d like a chance to actually get to know your brother,” Hoda continued nervously. “Last year… wasn’t exactly conducive to it.”

Emilie felt a twinge of anxiety from Aisha, but she pushed through it, breathing out slowly to release the anxiety, before nodding in agreement. “I think Abdi would like that, too. Maybe not this week, but next week?”

“That sounds great!”

“Hey, you said your dad works on spaceships, right?” Bri asked as Hoda took her seat. The alien nodded. “After all the stories, I would love to see this spaceport you keep talking about!”

“You know,” Sabrina observed slowly, “they’re actually adapting your jetpack design and incorporating it into the suits the non-miraculous users will use for spacewalks!”

“Seriously?” Bri raised her eyebrows in surprise. “That’s… amazing!”

Sabrina grinned. “Max was _really_ grateful to have your design!”

“I’d be happy to give you a tour!” Hoda assured Bri before looking around the room at the others. “That goes for everyone, in fact!” She gave a throaty laugh. “Just let me know before you come!”

Once all of the girls had finally taken their seats, Emilie met each of their eyes in turn and smiled warmly. “I’m so proud of all of you after this retreat!” she began. “You all arrived struggling with your own traumas, but you’ve made remarkable progress in working through them. And along the way you’ve helped each other in such incredible ways!” She felt a twinge of eagerness from Sabrina and fell silent.

Sabrina piped up, “Thank you for trusting us – for trusting each other and opening up. That isn’t easy, but it is so worthwhile. After the last two weekends, I feel as though I know each of you a little better, and I would consider all of you to be my friends. And I want you to know that if you ever need anything – someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on – you can contact me any time.” Emilie pushed her own eagerness to the forefront, and Sabrina added. “And that goes for Emilie, as well.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Anne replied. A trace of embarrassment ran through her. “I… so much appreciated this time. I… didn’t realize how much I needed it.”

Hoda nodded. “It’s nice to know I have friends here, that I can trust you.”

Aisha put her hand on Hoda’s arm and smiled. Her confidence now stood in such sharp contrast to the scared girl she had been only a week earlier. “I didn’t know how I could live with what had happened, but you gave me… hope.”

“Hope is a good word for it,” Bri agreed, her voice soft.

“This has been… good,” Chloe noted quietly. She felt more relaxed than Emilie had seen her at any time in the months since her return. “I’m… glad this was so helpful. I’m glad you had this to help you work through what happened to you.” She stopped, anxious. Sabrina placed her own hand on top of Chloe’s, and Chloe nodded, steeling herself. “But this isn’t the end of it. It’s been months since what happened to me, and I still think about it. Maybe not every day, but at least a couple times a week. It’s not just going to go away.”

The other four all nodded their heads slowly in acknowledgement. A hint of sadness came from Aisha.

“Chloe is correct,” Emilie agreed smiling sympathetically. “I don’t want you thinking this is the end of your recovery. This retreat isn’t a panacea. It’s not a miracle cure. Nothing is going to magically make your trauma disappear – as much as we all wish it could. There are going to be days that it feels more ‘real’ than others, days when it feels like it only just happened. But after this week you have better tools to manage the emotions that your trauma has uncovered. And when that happens, you have each other to talk to. Each of you have friends and family who love you. And whenever you need us, you also have Sabrina and me – I promise you, I will drop everything to talk with you, any time, day or night. You are not alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That does it for “Group Therapy,” but not for the concept or the characters. After the next “SLD Case Report,” I’m going to return to “The Woman out of the Fridge” for a few more chapters… which includes Audrey’s visit to Paris.
> 
> Note on former holders mentioned: Niú Shū (“Uncle Ox”) and Húlí Yímā (“Aunt Fox”) were contemporaries of Hua Mulan. La Resistaonne was Emilie’s grandmother, who was Le Maquillon’s wife.


End file.
